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THE   UNDYING  FIRE 

A  CONTEMPORARY  NOVEL 


BY 

H.   G.  WELLS 


J'J       JO         >S>         i 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1919 

All  right*  reserved 


ttUPV'Vi    7fC5D 


copteight,  im9, 
By  H.  G.  wells. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  May,  1919. 


•  ••-•• 
.    •  •  ••  » 


Norbjoolj  ^KBg 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


--^' 


r  Ks 


All  Schoolmasters  and  Schoolmistresses 

and  every 

Teacher  in  the  World 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

1.  The  Prologue  in  Heaven  . 

2.  At  Sea  View,  Sundering-on-Sea 

3.  The  Three  Visitors     . 

4.  Do  We  Truly  Die?     . 

5.  Elihu  Reproves  Job    . 

6.  The  Operation 

7.  Letters  and  a  Telegram 


PAGE 
1 

17 
39 
100 
133 
200 
214 


vii 


.     THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

CHAPTER  THE  FIEST 

THE  PEOLOGUE  IN  HEAVEN" 

§1 

Two  eternal  beings,  magnificently  enhaloed, 
the  one  in  a  blinding  excess  of  white  radiance 
and  the  other  in  a  bewildering  extravagance  of 
colours,  converse  amidst  stupendous  surround- 
ings. These  surroundings  are  by  tradition 
palatial,  but  there  is  now  also  a  marked  cosmic 
tendency  about  them.  They  have  no  definite 
locality;  they  are  above  and  comprehensive  of 
the  material  universe. 

There  is  a  quality  in  the  scene  as  if  a  futur- 
ist with  a  considerable  knowledge  of  modern 
chemical  and  physical  speculation  and  some 
obscure  theological  animus  had  repainted  the 
designs  of  a  pre-Eaphaelite.  The  vast  pillars 
vanish  into  unfathomable  darknesses,  and  the 
complicated  curves  and  whorls  of  the  decora- 
tions seem  to  have  been  traced  by  the  flight 

B  1 


«      ••«..t     t 
•  •     •  •,   ♦  «     • 

•  •  <Ct  (f 


2      ':-  '-  '..' i  'y'tSE  ^'UNDYIlS^G  FIRE 

of  elemental  particles.  Suns  and  planets  spin 
and  glitter  through  the  avanturine  depths  of 
a  floor  of  crystalline  ether.  Great  winged 
shapes  are  in  attendance,  wrought  of  irides- 
cences and  bearing  globes,  stars,  rolls  of  the 
law,  flaming  swords,  and  similar  symbols.  The 
voices  of  the  Cherubim  and  Seraphim  can  be 
heard  crjdng  continually,  ' '  Holy,  Holy,  Holy. ' ' 

Now,  as  in  the  ancient  story,  it  is  a  reception 
of  the  sons  of  God. 

The  Master  of  the  gathering,  to  whom  one 
might  reasonably  attribute  a  sublime  boredom, 
seeing  that  everything  that  can  possibly  happen 
is  necessarily  known  to  him,  displays  on  the 
contrar}^  as  lively  an  interest  in  his  interlocutor 
as  ever.  This  interlocutor  is  of  course  Satan, 
the  Unexpected. 

The  contrast  of  these  two  eternal  beings  is 
very  marked;  while  the  Deity,  veiled  and 
almost  hidden  in  light,  with  his  hair  like  wool 
and  his  eyes  like  the  blue  of  infinite  space, 
conveys  an  effect  of  stable,  remote,  and  moun- 
tainous grandeur,  Satan  has  the  compact  alert- 
ness of  habitual  travel;  he  is  as  definite  as  a 
grip-sack,  and  he  brings  a  flavour  of  initiative 
and  even  bustle  upon  a  scene  that  would  other- 
wise be  one  of  serene  perfection.  His  halo  even 
has   a   slightly   travelled  look.     He   has   been 


THE  PROLOGUE  IN  HEAVEN  3 

going  to  and  fro  in  the  earth  and  walking 
up  and  down  in  it;  his  labels  are  still  upon 
him.  His  status  in  heaven  remains  as  unde- 
fined as  it  was  in  the  time  of  Job ;  it  is  uncertain 
to  this  day  whether  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  sons  of  God  or  as  an  inexplicable  intruder 
among  them.  (But  see  upon  this  question  the 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica  under  his  name.)  What- 
ever his  origin  there  can  be  little  doubt  of  his 
increasing  assurance  of  independence  and  im- 
portance in  the  Divine  presence.  His  freedom 
may  be  sanctioned  or  innate,  but  he  himself  has 
no  doubt  remaining  of  the  security  of  his  per- 
sonal autonomy.  He  believes  that  he  is  a 
necessary  accessory  to  God,  and  that  his  incal- 
culable quality  is  an  indispensable  relief  to  the 
acquiescences  of  the  Archangels.  He  never 
misses  these  reunions.  If  God  is  omnipresent 
by  a  calm  necessity,  Satan  is  everywhere  by  an 
infinite  activity.  They  engage  in  unending 
metaphysical  differences  into  which  Satan  has 
imported  a  tone  of  friendly  badinage.  They 
play  chess  together. 

But  the  chess  they  play  is  not  the  little 
ingenious  game  that  originated  in  India;  it  is 
on  an  altogether  different  scale.  The  Ruler 
of  the  Universe  creates  the  board,  the  pieces, 
and  the  rules ;  he  makes  all  the  moves ;  he  may 


4  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

make  as  many  moves  as  he  likes  whenever  he 
likes;  his  antagonist,  however,  is  permitted  to 
introduce  a  slight  inexplicable  inaccuracy  into 
each  move,  which  necessitates  further  moves 
in  correction.  The  Creator  determines  and 
conceals  the  aim  of  the  game,  and  it  is  never 
clear  whether  the  purpose  of  the  adversary  is 
to  defeat  or  assist  him  in  his  unfathomable 
project.  Apparently  the  adversary  cannot  win, 
but  also  he  cannot  lose  so  long  as  he  can  keep 
the  game  going.  But  he  is  concerned,  it  would 
seem,  in  preventing  the  development  of  any 
reasoned  scheme  in  the  game. 


§2 

Celestial  badinage  is  at  once  too  high  and 
broad  to  come  readily  within  the  compass  of 
earthly  print  and  understanding.  The  Satanic 
element  of  unexpectedness  can  fill  the  whole 
sphere  of  Being  with  laughter ;  thrills  begotten 
of  those  vast  reverberations  startle  our  poor 
wits  at  the  strangest  moments.  It  is  the 
humour  of  Satan  to  thrust  upon  the  Master  his 
own  title  of  the  Unique  and  to  seek  to  wrest 
from  him  the  authorship  of  life.  (But  such 
jesting  distresses  the  angels.) 

*^  I  alone  create." 
I  **  But  I  — I  ferment." 

Matter  I  made  and  all  things." 
Stagnant  as   a  sleeping  top  but  for  the 
wabble  I  give  it." 

*^  You  are  just  the  little  difference  of  the 
individual.  You  are  the  little  Uniqueness  in 
everyone  and  everything,  the  Unique  that 
breaks  the  law,  a  marginal  idiosyncracy. ' ' 

^^  Sire,  you  are  the  Unique,  the  Uniqueness 
of  the  whole. ' ' 

6 


0  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

Heaven  smiled,  and  there  were  halcyon  days 
in  the  planets.  *  *  I  shall  average  you  out  in  the 
end  and  you  will  disappear." 

""  And  everything  will  end." 

**  Will  be  complete." 

'^Without  me!  " 

* '  You  spoil  the  symmetry  of  my  universe. ' ' 

**  I  give  it  life." 

**  Life  comes  from  me." 

**  No,  Sire,  life  comes  from  me." 

One  of  the  great  shapes  in  attendance  became 
distinct  as  Michael  bearing  his  sword.  ^'  He 
blasphemes,  0  Lord.     Shall  I  cast  him  forth?  " 

''  But  you  did  that  some  time  ago,"  answered 
Satan,  speaking  carelessly  over  his  shoulder 
and  not  even  looking  at  the  speaker.  ''  You 
keep  on  doing  it.    And  —  I  am  here. ' ' 

*^  He  returns,"  said  the  Lord  soothingly. 
*'  Perhaps  I  will  him  to  return.  What  should 
we  be  without  him!  " 

**  Without  me,  time  and  space  would  freeze 
into  crystalline  perfection,"  said  Satan,  and  at 
his  smile  the  criminal  statistics  of  a  myriad 
planets  displayed  an  upward  wave.  **  It  is  I 
who  trouble  the  waters.    I  trouble  all  things. 

1  am  the  spirit  of  life." 

^'  But  the  soul,"  said  God. 

Satan,  sitting  with  one  arm  thrown  over  the 


THE  PROLOGUE  IN  HEAVEN  7 

back  of  his  throne  towards  Michael,  raised  his 
eyebrows  by  way  of  answer.  This  talk  about 
the  soul  he  regarded  as  a  divine  weakness.  He 
knew  nothing  of  the  soul. 

**  I  made  man  in  my  own  image/'  said  God. 

**  And  I  made  him  a  man  of  the  world.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  me  he  would  still  be  a 
needless  gardener  —  pretending  to  cultivate  a 
weedless  garden  that  grew  right  because  it 
couldn't  grow  wrong  —  in  *  those  endless  sum- 
mers the  blessed  ones  see.'  Think  of  it,  ye 
Powers  and  Dominions !  Perfect  flowers !  Per- 
fect fruits!  Never  an  autumn  chill!  Never  a 
yellow  leaf !  Golden  leopards,  noble  lions,  car- 
nivores unfulfilled,  purring  for  his  caresses 
amidst  the  aimless  friskings  of  lambs  that 
would  never  grow  old !  Good  Lord !  How  bored 
he  would  have  been!  How  bored!  Instead  of 
Avhich,  did  I  not  launch  him  on  the  most  mar- 
vellous adventures?  It  was  I  who  gave  him 
history.  Up  to  the  very  limit  of  his  possibilities. 
Up  to  the  very  limit.  .  .  .  And  did  not  you, 
0  Lord,  by  sending  your  angels  with  their  flam- 
ing swords,  approve  of  what  I  had  done?  " 

God  gave  no  answer. 

^^  But  that  reminds  me,"  said  Satan 
unabashed. 


§3 

The  great  winged  shapes  drew  nearer,  for 
Satan  is  the  celestial  raconteur.  He  alone 
makes  stories. 

<<  There  was  a  certain  man  in  the  land  of  Uz 
whose  name  was  Job.'' 

<*  We  remember  him.'' 

**  We  had  a  wager  of  sorts,"  said  Satan. 
**  It  was  some  time  ago." 

**  The  wager  was  never  very  distinct  —  and 
now  that  you  remind  me  of  it,  there  is  no  record 
of  your  paying. ' ' 

**  Did  I  lose  or  win?  The  issue  was  obscured 
by  discussion.  How  those  men  did  talk!  You 
intervened.     There  was  no  decision." 

'*  You  lost,  Satan,"  said  a  great  Being  of 
Liglit  who  bore  a  book.  ^'  The  wager  was 
whether  Job  would  lose  faith  in  God  and  curse 
him.  He  was  afflicted  in  every  way,  and  par- 
ticularly by  the  conversation  of  his  friends. 
But  there  remains  an  undying  fire  in  man." 

Satan  rested  his  dark  face  on  his  hand,  and 
looked   down  between  his   knees   through  the 

8 


THE  PROLOGUE  IN  HEAVEN  9 

pellucid  floor  to  that  little  eddying  in  the  ether 
which  makes  our  world.  **  Job/'  he  said, 
"  lives  still." 

Then  after  an  interval:  *^  The  whole  earth 
is  now  —  Job. ' ' 

Satan  delights  equally  in  statistics  and  in 
quoting  scripture.  He  leant  back  in  his  seat 
with  an  expression  of  quiet  satisfaction. 
**  Job/'  he  said,  in  easy  narrative  tones, ''  lived 
to  a  great  age.  After  his  disagreeable  experi- 
ences he  lived  one  hundred  and  forty  years. 
He  had  again  seven  sons  and  three  daughters, 
and  he  saw  his  offspring  for  four  generations. 
So  much  is  classical.  These  ten  children 
brought  him  seventy  grandchildren,  who  again 
prospered  generally  and  had  large  families.  (It 
was  a  prolific  strain.)  And  now  if  we  allow 
three  generations  to  a  century,  and  the  reality 
is  rather  more  than  that,  and  if  we  take  the 
survival  rate  as  roughly  three  to  a  family,  and 
if  we  agree  with  your  excellent  Bishop  Usher 
that  Job  lived  about  thirty-five  centuries  ago, 

that  gives  us How  many?    Three  to  the 

hundred  and  fifth  power?  .  .  .  It  is  at  any 
rate  a  sum  vastly  in  excess  of  the  present  popu- 
lation of  the  earth.  .  .  .  You  have  globes  and 
rolls  and  swords  and  stars  here;  has  anyone  a 
slide  rule?  '' 


10  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

But  the  computation  was  brushed  aside. 

*^  A  thousand  years  in  my  sight  are  but  as 
yesterday  when  it  is  past.  I  will  grant  what 
you  seek  to  prove;  that  Job  has  become  man- 
kind/' 


§4 

The  dark  regard  of  Satan  smote  down 
through  the  quivering  universe  and  left  the  toil- 
ing light  waves  behind.  '^  See  there/'  he  said 
pointing.  ^^  My  old  friend  on  his  little  planet 
—  Adam  —  Job  —  Man  —  like  a  roast  on  a  spit. 
It  is  time  we  had  another  wager. ' ' 

God  condescended  to  look  with  Satan  at  man- 
kind, circling  between  day  and  night.  *  ^  Whether 
he  will  curse  or  bless?  '' 

**  Whether  he  will  even  remember  God." 

^'  I  have  given  my  promise  that  I  will  at  last 
restore  Adam." 

The  downcast  face  smiled  faintly. 

**  These  questions  change  from  age  to  age," 
said  Satan. 

*^  The  Whole  remains  the  same." 

*^  The  story  grows  longer  in  either  direction," 
said  Satan,  speaking  as  one  who  thinks  aloud; 
*  ^  past  and  future  unfold  together.  .  .  .  When 
the  first  atoms  jarred  I  was  there,  and  so  con- 
flict was  there  —  and  progress.  The  days  of 
the  old  story  have  each  expanded  to  hundreds 

11 


12  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

of  millions  of  years  now,  and  still  I  am  in  them 
all.  The  sharks  and  crawling  monsters  of  the 
early  seas,  the  first  things  that  crept  out  of  the 
water  into  the  jungle  of  fronds  and  stems,  the 
early  reptiles,  the  leaping  and  flying  dragons  of 
the  great  age  of  life,  the  mighty  beasts  of  hoof 
and  horn  that  came  later;  they  all  feared  and 
suffered  and  were  perplexed.  At  last  came  this 
Man  of  yours,  out  of  the  woods,  hairy,  beetle- 
browed  and  blood-stained,  peering  not  too  hope- 
fully for  that  Eden-bower  of  the  ancient  story. 
It  wasn't  there.  There  never  had  been  a  gar- 
den. He  had  fallen  before  he  arose,  and  the 
weeds  and  thorns  are  as  ancient  as  the  flowers. 
The  Fall  goes  back  in  time  now  beyond  man, 
beyond  the  world,  beyond  imagination.  The 
very  stars  were  born  in  sin.  .    .    . 

*  *  If  we  can  still  call  it  sin, ' '  mused  Satan. 

**  On  a  little  planet  this  Thing  arises,  this 
red  earth,  this  Adam,  this  Edomite,  this  Job. 
He  builds  cities,  he  tills  the  earth,  he  catches 
the  lightning  and  makes  a  slave  of  it,  he  changes 
the  breed  of  beast  and  grain.  Clever  things  to 
do,  but  still  petty  things.  You  say  that  in  some 
manner  he  is  to  come  up  at  last  to  this.  .  .  . 
He  is  too  foolish  and  too  weak.  His  achieve- 
ments only  illuminate  his  limitations.  Look  at 
his  little  brain  boxed  up  from  growth  in  a  skull 


THE  PROLOGUE  IN   HEAVEN  13 

of  bone !  Look  at  his  bag  of  a  body  full  of  rags 
and  rudiments,  a  haggis  of  diseases !  His  life 
is  decay.  .  .  .  Does  he  grow?  I  do  not  see  it. 
Has  he  made  any  perceptible  step  forward  in 
quality  in  the  last  ten  thousand  years  f  He 
quarrels  endlessly  and  aimlessly  with  himself. 
.  .  .  In  a  little  while  his  planet  will  cool  and 
freeze." 

*  *  In  the  end  he  will  rule  over  the  stars, ' '  said 
the  voice  that  was  above  Satan.  ''  My  spirit 
is  in  him." 

Satan  shaded  his  face  with  his  hand  from 
the  effulgence  about  him.  He  said  no  more 
for  a  time,  but  sat  watching  mankind  as  a  boy 
might  sit  on  the  bank  of  a  stream  and  watch 
the  fry  of  minnows  in  the  clear  water  of  a 
shallow. 

'*  Nay,"  he  said  at  last,  ''  but  it  is  incredible. 
It  is  impossible.  I  have  disturbed  and  afflicted 
him  long  enough.  I  have  driven  him  as  far  as 
he  can  be  driven.  But  now  I  am  moved  to  pity. 
Let  us  end  this  dispute.     It  has  been  interesting. 

but  now Is  it  not  enough  !    It  grows  cruel 

He  has  reached  his  limit.  Let  us  give  him  a 
little  peace  now.  Lord,  a  little  season  of  sun- 
shine and  plenty,  and  then  some  painless  uni- 
versal pestilence  and  so  let  him  die." 

^*  He  is  immortal  and  he  does  but  begin." 


14  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

''  He  is  mortal  and  near  his  end.  At  times 
no  doubt  he  has  a  certain  air  that  seems  to 
promise  miderstanding  and  mastery  in  his 
world;  it  is  but  an  air;  give  me  the  power  to 
afflict  and  subdue  him  but  a  little,  and  after  a 
few  squeaks  of  faith  and  hope  he  will  whine  and 
collapse  like  any  other  beast.  He  will  behave 
like  any  kindred  creature  with  a  smaller  brain 
and  a  larger  jaw;  he  too  is  doomed  to  suffer  to 
no  purpose,  to  struggle  by  instinct  merely  to 
live,  to  endure  for  a  season  and  then  to  pass. 
.  .  .  Give  me  but  the  power  and  you  shall  see 
his  courage  snap  like  a  rotten  string. ' ' 

'^  You  may  do  all  that  you  will  to  him,  only 
you  must  not  slay  him.  For  my  spirit  is  in 
him. ' ' 

*  ^  That  he  will  cast  out  of  his  own  accord  — 
when  I  have  ruined  his  hopes,  mocked  his  sac- 
rifices, blackened  his  skies  and  filled  his  veins 
with  torture.  .  .  .  But  it  is  too  easy  to  do. 
Let  me  just  slay  him  now  and  end  his  story. 
Then  let  us  begin  another,  a  different  one,  and 
something  more  amusing.  Let  us,  for  example, 
put  brains  —  and  this  Soul  of  yours  —  into  the 
ants  or  the  bees  or  the  beavers !  Or  take  up  the 
octopus,  already  a  very  tactful  and  intelligent 
creature !  ' ' 

**  No;  but  do  as  you  have  said,  Satan.     For 


THE  PROLOGUE  IN  HEAVEN  15 

you  also  are  my  instrument.  Try  Man  to  the 
uttermost.  See  if  he  is  indeed  no  more  than  a 
little  stir  amidst  the  slime,  a  fuss  in  the  mud 
that  signifies  nothing.  ..." 


§5 

The  Satan,  his  face  hidden  in  shadow,  seemed 
not  to  hear  this,  but  remained  still  and  intent 
upon  the  world  of  men. 

And  as  that  brown  figure,  with  its  vast  halo 
like  the  worn  tail  of  some  fiery  peacock,  brooded 
high  over  the  realms  of  being,  this  that  follows 
happened  to  a  certain  man  upon  the  earth. 


16 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

AT    SEA   VIEW,    SUNDERIKG-ON-SEA 

§1 

In  an  uncomfortable  armchair  of  slippery 
black  horsehair,  in  a  mean  apartment  at  Sunder- 
ing-on-Sea,  sat  a  sick  man  staring  dully  out  of 
the  window.  It  was  an  oppressive  day,  hot 
under  a  leaden  sky;  there  was  scarcely  a  move- 
ment in  the  air  save  for  the  dull  thudding  of 
the  gun  practice  at  Shorehamstow.  A  multi- 
tude of  flies  crawled  and  buzzed  fitfully  about 
the  room,  and  ever  and  again  some  chained-up 
cur  in  the  neighbourhood  gave  tongue  to  its  dis- 
content. The  window  looked  out  upon  a  vacant 
building  lot,  a  waste  of  scorched  grass  and  rusty 
rubbish  surrounded  by  a  fence  of  barrel  staves 
and  barbed  wire.  Between  the  ruinous  notice- 
board  of  some  pre-war  building  enterprise  and 
the  gaunt  verandah  of  a  convalescent  home,  on 
which  the  motionless  blue  forms  of  two  despon- 
dent wounded  men  in  deck  chairs  were  visible, 
c  17 


18  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

came  the  sea  view  which  justified  the  name  of 
the  house;  beyond  a  wide  waste  of  mud,  over 
which  quivered  the  heat-tormented  air,  the  still 
anger  of  the  heavens  lowered  down  to  meet  in 
a  line  of  hard  conspiracy,  the  steely  criminality 
of  the  remote  deserted  sea. 

The  man  in  the  chair  flapped  his  hand  and 
spoke.  ^'  You  accursed  creature,'^  he  said. 
"  Why  did  God  make  flies?  " 

After  a  long  interval  he  sighed  deeply  and 
repeated:  "Why?  '' 

He  made  a  fitful  effort  to  assume  a  more 
comfortable  position,  and  relapsed  at  last  into 
his  former  attitude  of  brooding  despondency. 

When  presently  his  landlady  came  in  to  lay 
the  table  for  lunch,  an  almost  imperceptible 
wincing  alone  betrayed  his  sense  of  the  threat- 
ening swish  and  emphasis  of  her  movements. 
She  was  manifestly  heated  by  cooking,  and  a 
smell  of  burnt  potatoes  had  drifted  in  with  her 
appearance.  She  was  a  meagre  little  woman 
with  a  resentful  manner,  glasses  pinched  her 
sharp  red  nose,  and  as  she  spread  out  the  grey- 
white  diaper  and  rapped  down  the  knives  and 
forks  in  their  places  she  glanced  at  him  darkly 
as  if  his  inattention  aggrieved  her.  Twice  she 
was  moved  to  speak  and  did  not  do  so,  but  at 
length   she   could   endure   his   indifference   no 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     19 

longer.  *^  Still  feeling  ill  I  suppose,  Mr. 
'Uss?  ''  she  said,  in  the  manner  of  one  who 
knows  only  too  well  what  the  answer  will  be. 

He  started  at  the  sound  of  her  voice,  and  gave 
her  his  attention  as  if  with  an  effort.  **  I  beg 
your  pardon,  Mrs.  Croome?  '' 

The  landlady  repeated  with  acerbity,  *  *  I  arst 
if  you  was  still  feeling  ill,  Mr.  'Uss.'' 

He  did  not  look  at  her  when  he  replied,  but 
glanced  towards  her  out  of  the  corner  of  his 
eyes.  ''  Yes,''  he  said.  ^^  Yes,  I  am.  I  am 
afraid  I  am  ill."  She  made  a  noise  of  un- 
friendly confirmation  that  brought  his  face 
round  to  her.  ^^  But  mind  you,  Mrs.  Croolne,  I 
don't  want  Mrs.  Huss  worried  about  it.  She 
has  enough  to  trouble  her  just  now.  Quite 
enough. ' ' 

**  Misfortunes  don't  ever  come  singly,"  said 
Mrs.  Croome  with  quiet  satisfaction,  leaning 
across  the  table  to  brush  some  spilt  salt  from 
off  the  cloth  to  the  floor.  She  was  not  going 
to  make  any  rash  promises  about  Mrs.  Huss. 

*^  We  'ave  to  bear  up  with  what  is  put  upon 
us,"  said  Mrs.  Croome.  *'  We  'ave  to  find 
strength  where  strength  is  to  be  found. ' ' 

She  stood  up  and  regarded  him  with  pensive 
malignity.  * '  Very  likely  all  you  want  is  a  tonic 
of  some  sort.  Very  likely  you've  just  let  your- 
self go.    I  shouldn  't  be  surprised. ' ' 


20  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

The  sick  man  gave  no  welcome  to  this  sug- 
gestion. 

*  *  If  yon  was  to  go  round  to  the  young  doctor 
at  the  corner  —  Barrack  isnameis  —  very  likely 
he^d  put  you  right.  Everybody  says  he's  very 
clever.  Not  that  me  and  Croome  put  much 
faith  in  doctors.  Nor  need  to.  But  you're  in  a 
different  position.'' 

The  man  in  the  chair  had  been  to  see  the 
young  doctor  at  the  corner  twice  already,  but 
he  did  not  want  to  discuss  that  interview  with 
Mrs.  Croome  just  then.  ^'  I  must  think  about 
it,"  he  said  evasively. 

''  After  all  it  isn't  fair  to  yourself,  it  isn't 
fair  to  others,  to  sicken  for  —  it  might  be  any- 
think  —  without  proper  advice.  Sitting  there 
and  doing  nothing.  Especially  in  lodgings  at 
this  time  of  year.  It  isn't,  well — not  what  I 
call  considerate." 

**  Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Huss  weakly. 

It  There's  homes  and  hospitals  properly 
equipped. ' ' 

The  sick  man  nodded  his  head  appreciatively. 

**  If  things  are  nipped  in  the  bud  they're 
nipped  in  the  bud,  otherwise  they  grow  and 
make  trouble. ' ' 

It  was  exactly  what  her  hearer  was  thinking. 

Mrs.  Croome  ducked  to  the  cellarette  of  a 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     21 

gaunt  sideboard  and  rapped  out  a  whisky  bottle, 
a  bottle  of  lime-juice,  and  a  soda-water  syphon 
upon  the  table.  She  surveyed  her  handiwork 
with  a  critical  eye.  "  Cruet,*'  she  whispered, 
and  vanished  from  the  room,  leaving  the  door, 
after  a  tormenting  phase  of  creaking,  to  slam 
by  its  own  weight  behind  her.   .    .    . 

The  invalid  raised  his  hand  to  his  forehead 
and  found  it  wet  with  perspiration.  His  hand 
was  trembling  violently.  ''  My  God! ''  he 
whispered. 


§2 

This  man's  name  was  Job  Huss.  His  father 
had  been  called  Job  before  him,  and  so  far  as 
the  family  tradition  extended  the  eldest  son  had 
always  been  called  Job.  Four  weeks  ago  he 
would  have  been  esteemed  by  most  people  a 
conspicuously  successful  and  enviable  man,  and 
then  had  come  a  swift  rush  of  disaster. 

He  had  been  the  headmaster  of  the  great 
modern  public  school  at  "VYoldingstanton  in  Nor- 
folk, a  revived  school  under  the  Papermakers' 
Guild  of  the  City  of  London ;  he  had  given  him- 
self without  stint  to  its  establishment  and  he  had 
made  a  great  name  in  the  world  for  it  and  for 
himself.  He  had  been  the  first  English  school- 
master to  liberate  the  modern  side  from  the 
entanglement  of  its  lower  forms  with  the  clas- 
sical masters ;  it  was  the  only  school  in  England 
where  Spanish  and  Russian  were  honestly 
taught;  his  science  laboratories  were  the  best 
school  laboratories  in  Great  Britain  and  per- 
haps in  the  world,  and  his  new  methods  in  the 
teaching  of  history  and  politics  brought  a  steady 

22 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     23 

stream  of  foreign  inquirers  to  Woldingstanton. 
The  hand  of  the  adversary  had  touched  him  first 
just  at  the  end  of  the  summer  term.  There  had 
been  an  epidemic  of  measles  in  which,  through 
the  inexplicable  negligence  of  a  trusted  nurse, 
two  boys  had  died.  On  the  afternoon  of  the 
second  of  these  deaths  an  assistant  master  was 
killed  by  an  explosion  in  the  chemical  labora- 
tory. Then  on  the  very  last  night  of  the  term 
came  the  School  House  fire,  in  which  two  of  the 
younger  boys  were  burnt  to  death. 

Against  any  single  one  of  these  misfortunes 
Mr.  Huss  and  his  school  might  have  maintained 
an  unbroken  front,  but  their  quick  succession 
had  a  very  shattering  effect.  Every  circum- 
stance conspired  to  make  these  events  vividly 
dreadful  to  Mr.  Huss.  He  had  been  the  first 
to  come  to  the  help  of  his  chemistry  master,  who 
had  fallen  ranong  some  carboys  of  acid,  and 
though  still  alive  and  struggling,  was  blinded, 
nearly  faceless,  and  hopelessly  mangled.  The 
poor  fellow  died  before  he  could  be  extricated. 
On  the  night  of  the  fire  Mr.  Huss  strained  him- 
self internally  and  bruised  his  foot  very  pain- 
fully, and  he  himself  found  and  carried  out  the 
charred  body  of  one  of  the  two  little  victims 
from  th.d  room  in  which  they  had  been  trapped 
by  the  locking  of  a  door  during  some  **  last 


24  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

day  '^  ragging.  It  added  an  element  of  exas- 
perating inconvenience  to  liis  greater  distresses 
that  all  his  papers  and  nearly  all  his  personal 
possessions  were  burnt. 

On  the  morning  after  the  fire  Mr.  Huss's 
solicitor  committed  suicide.  He  was  an  old 
friend  to  whom  Mr.  Huss  had  entrusted  the 
complete  control  of  the  savings  that  were  to 
secure  him  and  Mrs.  Huss  a  dignified  old  age. 
The  lawyer  was  a  man  of  strong  political  feel- 
ings and  liberal  views,  and  he  had  bought 
roubles  to  his  utmost  for  Mr.  Huss  as  for  him- 
self, in  order  to  demonstrate  his  confidence  in 
the  Russian  revolution. 

All  these  things  had  a  quite  sufficiently  dis- 
organizing effect  upon  Mr.  Huss ;  upon  his  wife 
the  impression  they  made  wa3  altogether  disas- 
trous. She  was  a  worthy  but  emotional  lady, 
effusive  rather  than  steadfast.  Iiike  the  wives 
of  most  schoolmasters,  she  had  been  habitually 
preoccupied  with  matters  of  domestic  manage- 
ment for  many  years,  and  her  first  r^^action  was 
in  the  direction  of  a  bitter  economy,  mingled 
with  a  display  of  contempt  she  had  n  ever  mani- 
fested hitherto  for  her  husband's  practical 
ability.  Far  better  would  it  have  been  for  Mr. 
Huss  if  she  had  broken  do^^Ti  altogether;  she 
insisted  upon  directing  everything,  aJnd  doing 


AT  SEA   VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     25 

so  with  a  sort  of  pitiful  vehemence  that  brooked 
no  contradiction.  It  was  impossible  to  stay  at 
Woldingstanton  through  the  vacation,  in  sight 
of  the  tragic  and  blackened  ruins  of  School 
House,  and  so  she  decided  upon  Sundering-on- 
Sea  because  of  its  nearness  and  its  pre-war 
reputation  for  cheapness.  There,  she  an- 
nounced, her  husband  must  ^'  pull  himself 
together  and  pick  up,''  and  then  return  to  the 
rebuilding  of  School  House  and  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  school.  Many  formalities  had  to 
be  gone  through  before  the  building  could  be 
put  in  hand,  for  in  those  days  Britain  w^as  at 
the  extremity  of  her  war  effort,  and  labour  and 
material  were  unobtainable  without  special  per- 
mits and  great  exertion.  Sundering-on-Sea  was 
as  convenient  a  place  as  anywhere  from  which 
to  write  letters,  but  his  idea  of  going  to  London 
to  see  influential  people  was  resisted  by  Mrs. 
Huss  on  the  score  of  the  expense,  and  overcome 
when  he  persisted  in  it  by  a  storm  of  tears. 

On  her  arrival  at  Sundering  Mrs.  Huss  put 
up  at  the  Eailway  Hotel  for  the  night,  and  spent 
the  next  morning  in  a  stern  visitation  of  pos- 
sible lodgings.  Something  in  the  unassuming 
outlook  of  Sea  View  attracted  her,  and  after  a 
long  dispute  she  was  able  to  beat  dovv'n  Mrs. 
Croome's  demand  from  five  to  four  and  a  half 


26  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

guineas  a  week.  That  afternoon  some  impor- 
tunate applicant  in  an  extremity  of  homeless- 
ness  —  for  there  had  been  a  sudden  rush  of  vis- 
itors to  Sundering  —  offered  six  guineas.  Mrs. 
Croome  tried  to  call  off  her  first  bargain,  but 
Mrs.  Huss  was  obdurate,  and  thereafter  all  the 
intercourse  of  landlady  and  her  lodgers  went  to 
the  unspoken  refrain  of  ^  *  I  get  four  and  a  haK 
guineas  and  I  ought  to  get  six."  To  recoup 
herself  Mrs.  Croome  attempted  to  make  extra 
charges  for  the  use  of  the  bathroom,  for  cooking 
after  ^ve  o  'clock,  for  cleaning  Mr.  Huss 's  brown 
boots  with  specially  bought  brown  cream  instead 
of  blacking,  and  for  the  ink  used  by  him  in  his 
very  voluminous  correspondence;  upon  all  of 
which  points  there  was  much  argument  and  bit- 
terness. 

But  a  heavier  blow  than  any  they  had  hith- 
erto experienced  was  now  to  fall  upon  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Huss.  Job  in  the  ancient  story  had  seven 
sons  and  three  daughters,  and  they  were  all 
swept  away.  This  Job  was  to  suffer  a  sharper 
thrust;  he  had  but  one  dear  only  son,  a  boy  of 
great  promise,  who  had  gone  into  the  Eoyal  Fly- 
ing Corps.  News  came  that  he  had  been  shot 
down  over  the  German  lines. 

Unhappily  there  had  been  a  conflict  between 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Huss  about  this  boy.    Huss  had 


AT  SEA  VIEW,  SUNDERING-ON-SEA     27 

been  proud  that  the  youngster  should  choose  the 
heroic  service ;  Mrs.  Huss  had  done  her  utmost 
to  prevent  his  joining  it.  The  poor  lady  was 
now  ruthless  in  her  anguish.  She  railed  upon 
him  as  the  murderer  of  their  child.  She  hoped 
he  was  pleased  with  his  handiwork.  He  could 
count  one  more  name  on  his  list;  he  could  add 
it  to  the  roll  of  honour  in  the  chapel  ^  ^  with  the 
others.''  Her  hahy  boy!  This  said,  she  went 
wailing  from  the  room. 

The  wretched  man  sat  confounded.  That 
'^  with  the  others  "  cut  him  to  the  heart.  For 
the  school  chapel  had  a  list  of  V.C.'s,  D.C.M.'s 
and  the  like,  second  to  none,  and  it  had  indeed 
been  a  pride  to  him. 

For  some  days  his  soul  was  stunned.  He  was 
utterly  exhausted  and  lethargic.  He  could 
hardly,  attend  to  the  most  necessary  letters. 
From  dignity,  hope,  and  a  great  sheaf  of  activ- 
ities, his  life  had  shrunken  abruptly  to  the  com- 
pass of  this  dingy  lodging,  pervaded  by  the 
squabbling  of  two  irrational  women;  his  work 
in  the  world  was  in  ruins;  he  had  no  strength 
left  in  him  to  struggle  against  fate.  And  a 
vague  internal  pain  crept  slowly  into  his  con- 
sciousness. 

His  wife,  insane  now  and  cruel  with  sorrow, 
tried  to  put  a  great  quarrel  upon  him  about 


28  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

wearing  mourning  for  their  son.  He  had  al- 
ways disliked  and  spoken  against  these  pomps 
of  death,  bnt  she  insisted  that  whatever  callous- 
ness he  might  display  she  at  least  must  wear 
black.  He  might,  she  said,  rest  assured  that 
she  would  spend  no  more  money  than  the  barest 
decency  required;  she  would  buy  the  cheapest 
material,  and  make  it  up  in  her  bedroom.  But 
black  she  must  have.  This  resolution  led 
straight  to  a  conflict  with  Mrs.  Croome,  who 
objected  to  her  best  bedroom  being  littered  with 
bits  of  black  stuff,  and  cancelled  the  loan  of  her 
sewing  machine.  The  mourning  should  be 
made,  Mrs.  Huss  insisted,  though  she  had  to  sew 
every  stitch  of  it  by  hand.  And  the  poor  dis- 
traught lady  in  her  silly  parsimony  made  still 
deeper  trouble  for  herself  by  cutting  her  ma- 
terial in  every  direction  half  an  inch  or  more 
short  of  the  paper  pattern.  She  came  almost 
to  a  physical  tussle  with  Mrs.  Croome  because 
of  the  state  of  the  carpet  and  counterpane,  and 
Mrs.  Croome  did  her  utmost  to  drag  Mr.  Huss 
into  an  altercation  upon  the  matter  with  her 
husband. 

**  Croome  don't  interfere  much,  but  some 
things  he  or  nobody  ain't  going  to  stand,  Mr. 
'Uss." 

For    some    days    in    this    battlefield   of   in- 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     29 

satiable  grief  and  petty  cruelty,  and  with  a 
dull  pain  steadily  boring  its  way  to  recognition, 
Mr.  Huss  forced  himself  to  carry  on  in  a  fashion 
the  complex  of  business  necessitated  by  the 
school  disaster.  Then  in  the  night  came  a 
dream,  as  dreams  sometimes  will,  to  enlighten 
him  upon  his  bodily  condition.  Projecting  from 
his  side  he  saw  a  hard,  white  body  that  sent 
round,  wormlike  tentacles  into  every  corner  of 
his  being.  A  number  of  doctors  were  strug- 
gling to  tear  this  thing  away  from  him.  At 
every  effort  the  pain  increased. 

He  awoke,  but  the  pain  throbbed  on. 

He  lay  quite  still.  Upon  the  heavy  darkness 
he  saw  the  word  *^  Cancer,"  bright  red  and 
glowing  —  as  pain  glows.   .    .    . 

He  argued  in  the  face  of  invincible  convic- 
tion. He  kept  the  mood  conditional.  **  If  it 
be  so,"  he  said,  though  he  knew  that  the  thing 
was  so.  What  should  he  do?  There  would 
have  to  be  operations,  great  expenses,  enfeeble- 
ment.  .    .    . 

Whom  could  he  ask  for  advice?  Who  would 
help  him?   .    .    . 

Suppose  in  the  morning  he  were  to  take  a 
bathing  ticket  as  if  he  meant  to  bathe,  and 
struggle  out  beyond  the  mud-flats.  He  could 
behave  as  though  cramp  had  taken  him  sud- 
denly .    .    . 


30  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Five  minutes  of  suffocation  he  would  have 
to  force  himself  through,  and  then  peace  — 
endless  peace  I 

*^  No,"  he  said,  with  a  sudden  gust  of  cour- 
age.    ''  1  will  fight  it  out  to  the  end.'' 

But'  his  mind  was  too  dull  to  form  plans  and 
physically  he  was  afraid.  He  would  have  to 
find  a  doctor  somehow,  and  even  that  little  task 
appalled  him. 

Then  he  would  have  to  tell  Mrs.  Huss.  .    .    . 

For  a  time  he  lay  quite  still  as  if  he  listened 
to  the  alternative  swell  and  diminuendo  of  his 
pain. 

**  Oh!  if  I  had  someone  to  help  me!  ''  he 
whispered,  and  was  overcome  by  the  lonely 
misery  of  his  position.     *^  If  I  had  someone!  " 

For  years  he  had  never  wept,  but  now  tears 
were  wrung  from  him.  He  rolled  over  and  bur- 
ied his  face  in  the  pillow  and  tried  to  wriggle 
his  body  away  from  that  steady  gnawing;  he 
fretted  as  a  child  might  do.'' 

The  night  about  him  was  as  it  were  a  great 
watching  presence  that  would  not  help  nor 
answer. 


§3 

Behind  the  brass  plate  at  the  corner  which 
said  "•  Dr.  Elihu  Barrack  ''  Mr.  Huss  found  a 
hard,  competent  young  man,  who  had  returned 
from  the  war  to  his  practice  at  Sundering  after 
losing  a  leg.  The  mechanical  substitute  seemed 
to  have  taken  to  him  very  kindly.  He  appeared 
to  be  both  modest  and  resourceful;  his  unfa- 
vourable diagnosis  was  all  the  more  convincing 
because  it  was  tentative  and  conditional.  He 
knew  the  very  specialist  for  the  case ;  no  less  a 
surgeon  than  Sir  Alpheus  Mengo  came,  it  hap- 
pened, quite  frequently  to  play  golf  on  the 
Sundering  links.  It  would  be  easy  to  arrange 
for  him  to  examine  Mr.  Huss  in  Dr.  Barrack's 
little  consulting  room,  and  if  an  operation  had 
to  be  performed  it  could  be  managed  with  a 
minimum  of  expense  in  Mr.  Huss 's  own  lodgings 
without  any  extra  charge  for  mileage  and  the 
like. 

**  Of  course, '*  said  Mr.  Huss,  ^'  of  course,'* 
with  a  clear  vision  of  Mrs.  Croome  confronted 
with  the  proposal. 

31 


32  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Sir  Alpheus  Mengo  came  do\\Ti  the  next  Sat- 
urday, and  made  a  clandestine  examination. 
He  decided  to  operate  the  following  week-end. 
Mr.  Huss  was  left  at  his  own  request  to  break 
the  news  to  his  wife  and  to  make  the  necessary 
arrangements  for  this  use  of  Mrs.  Croome's 
rooms.  But  it  was  two  days  before  he  could 
bring  himself  to  broach  the  matter. 

He  sat  now  listening  to  the  sounds  of  his  wife 
moving  about  in  the  bedroom  overhead,  and  to 
the  mujffled  crashes  that  intimated  the  climax  of 
Mrs.  Croome  's  preparation  of  the  midday  meal. 
He  heard  her  calling  upstairs  to  know  whether 
Mrs.  Huss  was  ready  for  her  to  serve  up.  He 
was  seized  with  panic  as  a  schoolboy  might  be 
who  had  not  prepared  his  lesson.  He  tried 
hastily  to  frame  some  introductory  phrases,  but 
nothing  would  come  into  his  mind  save  terms  of 
disgust  and  lamentation.  The  sullen  heat  of 
the  day  mingled  in  one  impression  -with  his  pain. 
He  was  nauseated  by  the  smell  of  cooking.  He 
felt  it  would  be  impossible  to  sit  up  at  table  and 
pretend  to  eat  the  meal  of  burnt  bacon  and 
potatoes  that  was  all  too  evidently  coming. 

It  came.  Its  progress  along  the  passage  was 
announced  by  a  clatter  of  dishes.  The  door  was 
opened  by  a  kick.  Mrs.  Croome  put  the  feast 
upon  the  table  with  something  between  defence 


AT  SEA  VIEW,  SUNDERING-ON-SEA     33 

and  defiance  in  her  manner.  *  *  What  else, '  ^  she 
seemed  to  intimate,  * '  could  one  expect  for  four 
and  a  half  guineas  a  week  in  the  very  height 
of  the  season  ?  From  a  woman  who  could  have 
got  six!  '' 

**  Your  dinner's  there,"  Mrs.  Croome  called 
upstairs  to  Mrs.  Huss  in  tones  of  studied  negli- 
gence, and  then  retired  to  her  own  affairs  in  the 
kitchen,  slamming  the  door  behind  her. 

The  room  quivered  down  to  silence,  and  then 
Mr.  Huss  could  hear  the  footsteps  of  his  wife 
crossing  the  bedroom  and  descending  the 
staircase. 

Mrs.  Huss  was  a  dark,  graceful,  and  rather 
untidy  lady  of  seven  and  forty,  with  the  bridling 
bearing  of  one  who  habitually  repels  implicit 
accusations.  She  lifted  the  lid  of  the  vegetable 
dish.  ^*  I  thought  I  smelt  burning,"  she  said. 
**  The  woman  is  impossible." 

She  stood  by  her  chair,  regarding  her  hus- 
band and  waiting. 

He  rose  reluctantly,  and  transferred  himself 
to  a  seat  at  table. 

It  had  always  been  her  custom  to  carve.  She 
now  prepared  to  serve  him.  ^^  No,"  he  said, 
full  of  loathing.     '*  I  can't  eat.    I  can't/' 

She  put  down  the  tablespoon  and  fork  she 
had  just  raised,  and  regarded  him  with  eyes  of 
dark  disapproval. 


34  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

^^  It's  all  we  can  get,"  she  said. 

He  shook  his  head.     ^^  It  isn't  thaf 

**  I  don't  know  what  you  expect  me  to  get 
for  you  here, '  \  she  complained.  *  ^  The  trades- 
men don 't  know  us  —  and  don 't  care. ' ' 

''  It  isn't  that.     I'm  ill." 

*^  It's  the  heat.  We  are  all  ill.  Everyone. 
In  such  weather  as  this.  It's  no  excuse  for  not 
making  an  effort,  situated  as  we  are. ' ' 

* '  I  mean  I  am  really  ill.     I  am  in  pain. ' ' 

She  looked  at  him  as  one  might  look  at  an  un- 
reasonable child.  He  was  constrained  to  more 
definite  statement. 

**  I  suppose  I  must  tell  you  sooner  or  later. 
I've  had  to  see  a  doctor." 

*  ^  Without  consulting  me !  " 

*^  I  thought  if  it  turned  out  to  be  fancy  I 
needn't  bother  you." 

*  ^  But  how  did  you  find  a  doctor  ?  ' ' 

**  There's  a  fellow  at  the  corner.  Oh!  it's 
no  good  making  a  long  story  of  it.  I  have  can- 
cer. .  .  .  Nothing  will  do  but  an  operation." 
Self-pity  wrung  him.  He  controlled  a  violent 
desire  to  cry.  **  I  am  too  ill  to  eat.  I  ought  to 
be  lying  down." 

She  flopped  back  in  her  chair  and  stared  at 
him  as  one  stares  at  some  hideous'tnonstrosity. 
*  *  Oh !  "  she  said.  '  *  To  have  cancer  now !  In 
these  lodgings!  " 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA      35 

**  I  can't  help  it,''  he  said  in  accents  that  were 
almost  a  whine.     ''  I  didn't  choose  the  time." 

^^ Cancer!  ''  she  cried  reproachfully.  *'  The 
horror  of  it!  " 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment  with  hate  in 
his  heart.  He  saw  under  her  knitted  brows 
dark  and  hostile  eyes  that  had  once  sparkled 
with  affection,  he  saw  a  loose  mouth  with  down- 
turned  corners  that  had  been  proud  and  pretty, 
and  this  mask  of  dislike  w^as  projecting  forward 
upon  a  neck  he  had  used  to  call  her  head-stalk, 
so  like  had  it  seemed  to  the  stem  of  some  pretty 
flower.  She  had  had  lovely  shoulders  and  an 
impudent  humour;  and  now  the  skin  upon  her 
neck  and  shoulders  had  a  little  loosened,  and  she 
was  no  longer  impudent  but  harsh.  Her  brows 
were  moist  with  heat,  and  her  hair  more  than 
usually  astray.  But  these  things  did  not  in- 
crease, they  mitigated  his  antagonism.  They 
did  not  repel  him  as  defects ;  they  hurt  him  as 
wounds  received  in  a  common  misfortune. 
Always  he  had  petted  and  spared  and  rejoiced 
in  her  vanity  and  weakness,  and  now  as  he  real- 
ized the  full  extent  of  her  selfish  abandonment 
a  protective  pity  arose  in  his  heart  that  over- 
came his  physical  pain.  It  was  terrible  to  see 
how  completely  her  delicacy  and  tenderness  of 
mind  had  been  broken  down.     She  had  neither 


36  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

the  strength  nor  the  courage  left  even  for 
an  unselfish  thought.  And  he  could  not  help 
her;  whatever  power  he  had  possessed  over 
her  mind  had  gone  long  ago.  His  magic  had 
departed. 

Latterly  he  had  been  thinking  very  much  of 
her  prospects  if  he  were  to  die.  In  some  ways 
his  death  might  be  a  good  thing  for  her.  He  had 
an  endowment  assurance  running  that  would 
bring  in  about  seven  thousand  pounds  imme- 
diately at  his  death,  but  which  would  otherwise 
involve  heavy  annual  payments  for  some  years. 
So  far,  to  die  would  be  clear  gain.  But  who 
would  invest  this  money  for  her  and  look  after 
her  interests?  She  was,  he  knew,  very  silly 
about  property;  suspicious  of  people  she  knew 
intimately,  and  greedy  and  credulous  with 
strangers.  He  had  helped  to  make  her  incom- 
petent, and  he  owed  it  to  her  to  live  and  protect 
her  if  he  could.  And  behind  that  intimate  and 
immediate  reason  for  living  he  had  a  strong 
sense  of  work  in  the  world  yet  to  be  done  by 
him,  and  a  task  in  education  still  incomplete. 

He  spoke  with  his  chin  in  his  hand  and  his 
eyes  staring  at  the  dark  and  distant  sea.  **  An 
operation,''  he  said,  **  might  cure  me." 

Her  thoughts,  it  became  apparent,  had  been 
travelling  through  some  broken  and  unbeautiful 


AT  SEA  VIEW,   SUNDERING-ON-SEA     37 

eonntry  roughly  parallel  with  the  course  of  his 
own.  **  But  need  there  be  an  operation?  ''  she 
thought  aloud.     ''  Are  they  ever  any  good?  " 

^'  I  could  die,'*  he  admitted  bitterly,  and  re- 
pented as  he  spoke. 

There  had  been  times,  he  remembered,  when 
she  had  said  and  done  sweet  and  gallant  things, 
poor  soul!  poor  broken  companion!  And  now 
she  had  fallen  into  a  darkness  far  greater  than 
his.  He  had  feared  that  he  had  hurt  her,  and 
then  when  he  saw  that  she  was  not  hurt,  and 
that  she  scrutinized  his  face  eagerly  as  if  she 
weighed  the  sincerity  of  his  words,  his  sense 
of  utter  loneliness  was  completed. 

Over  his  mean  drama  of  pain  and  debasement 
in  its  close  atmosphere  buzzing  with  flies,  it  was 
as  if  some  gigantic  and  remorseless  being 
watched  him  as  a  man  of  science  might  hover 
over  some  experiment,  and  marked  his  life  and 
all  his  world.  ^  *  You  are  alone, ' '  this  brooding 
witness  counselled,  '^  you  are  utterly  alone. 
Curse  God  and  die/' 

It  seemed  a  long  time  before  Mr.  Huss  an- 
swered this  imagined  voice,  and  when  he 
answered  it  he  spoke  as  if  he  addressed  his  wife 
alone. 

''  No/'  he  said  with  a  sudden  decisiveness. 
**  No.    I  will  face  that  operation.  .    .    .  We  are 


38  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

ill  and  our  hearts  are  faint.     Neither  for  you, 
dear,  nor  for  me  must  our  story  finish  in  this 
fashion.     No.     I  shall  go  on  to  the  end. ' ' 
'^  And  have  your  operation  here?  '' 
^*  In  this  house.    It  is  by  far  the  most  con- 
venient place,  as  things  are.^' 
*  *  You  may  die  here !  ^  ^ 
''  Well,  I  shall  die  fighting.'' 
*^  Leaving  me  here  with  Mrs.  Croome." 
His  temper  broke  under  her  reply.     **  Leav- 
ing you   here   with   Mrs.    Croome,''   he    said 
harshly. 

He  got  up.  **  I  can  eat  nothing,''  he  re- 
peated, and  dropped  back  sullenly  into  the 
horsehair  arm-chair. 

There  was  a  long  silence,  and  then  he  heard 
the  little,  almost  mouselike,  movements  of  his 
wife  as  she  began  her  meal.  For  a  while  he 
had  forgotten  the  dull  ache  within  him,  but  now, 
glowing  and  fading  and  glowing,  it  made  its 
way  back  into  his  consciousness.  He  was  help- 
less and  perplexed ;  he  had  not  meant  to  quarrel. 
He  had  hurt  this  poor  thing  who  had  been  his 
love  and  companion;  he  had  bullied  her.  His 
clogged  brain  could  think  of  nothing  to  set  mat- 
ters right.  He  stared  with  dull  eyes  at  a  world 
utterly  hateful  to  him. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE  THREE   VISITORS 

§  1 

While  this  unhappy  conversation  was  occur- 
ring at  Sundering-on-Sea,  three  men  were  dis- 
cussing the  case  of  Mr.  Huss  very  earnestly  over 
a  meatless  but  abundant  lunch  in  the  bow  win- 
dow of  a  club  that  gives  upon  the  trees  and  sun- 
shine of  Carlton  Gardens.  Lobster  salad 
engaged  them,  and  the  ice  in  the  jug  of  hock 
cup  clinked  very  pleasantly  as  they  replenished 
their  glasses. 

The  host  was  Sir  Eliphaz  Burrows,  the 
patentee  and  manufacturer  of  those  Temanite 
building  blocks  which  have  not  only  revolution- 
ized the  construction  of  army  hutments,  but  put 
the  whole  problem  of  industrial  and  rural  hous- 
ing upon  an  altogether  new  footing;  his  guests 
were  Mr.  William  Dad,  formerly  the  maker  of  the 
celebrated  Dad  and  Showhite  car  de  luxe,  and 
now  one  of  the  chief  contractors  for  aeroplanes 

39 


40  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

in  England ;  and  Mr.  Joseph  Farr,  the  head  of 
the  technical  section  of  Woldingstanton  School. 
Both  the  former  gentlemen  were  governors  of 
that  foundation  and  now  immensely  rich,  and 
Sir  Eliphaz  had  once  been  a  pupil  of  the  father 
of  Mr.  Huss  and  had  played  a  large  part  in  tne 
appointment  of  the  latter  to  Woldingstanton. 
He  was  a  slender  old  man,  with  an  avid  vul- 
turine  head  poised  on  a  long  red  neck,  and  he 
had  an  abundance  of  parti-coloured  hair,  red 
and  white,  springing  from  a  circle  round  the 
cro^vn  of  his  head,  from  his  eyebrows,  his  face 
generally,  and  the  backs  of  his  hands.  He  wore 
a  blue  soft  shirt  with  a  turn-down  collar  within 
a  roomy  blue  serge  suit,  and  that  and  something 
about  his  large  loose  black  tie  suggested  scholar- 
ship and  refinement.  His  manners  were  elab- 
orately courteous.  Mr.  Dad  was  a  compacter, 
keener  type,  warily  alert  in  his  bearing,  an 
industrial  fox-terrier  from  the  Midlands,  silver- 
haired  and  dressed  in  ordinary  morning  dress 
except  for  a  tan  vest  w^ith  a  bright  brown  ribbon 
border.  Mr.  Farr  was  big  in  a  grey  flannel 
Norfolk  suit;  he  had  a  large,  round,  white, 
shiny,  clean-shaven  face  and  uneasy  hands,  and 
it  was  apparent  that  he  carried  pocket-books 
and  suchlike  luggage  in  his  breast  pocket. 
They  consumed  the   lobster   appreciatively, 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  41 

and  approached  in  a  fragmentary  and  tentative 
maimer  the  business  that  had  assembled  them: 
namely,  the  misfortunes  that  had  overwhelmed 
Mr.  Huss  and  their  bearing  upon  the  future  of 
the  school. 

^^  For  my  part  I  don't  think  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  misfortune,''  said  Mr.  Dad.  ^^  I  don't 
hold  with  it.    Miscalculation  if  you  like. ' ' 

**  In  a  sense,"  said  Mr.  Farr  ambiguously, 
glancing  at  Sir  Eliphaz. 

*^  If  a  man  keeps  his  head  screwed  on  the 
right  way,"  said  Mr.  Dad,  and  attacked  a  claw 
with  hope  and  appetite.  Mr.  Dad  affected  the 
parsimony  of  unfinished  sentences. 

**  I  can't  help  thinking,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz, 
putting  down  his  glass  and  wiping  his  moustache 
and  eyebrows  with  care  before  resuming  his 
lobster,  **  that  a  man  who  entrusts  his  affairs 
to  a  solicitor,  after  the  fashion  of  the  widow 
and  orphan,  must  be  sing-ularly  lacking  in  judg- 
ment. Or  reckless.  Never  in  the  whole  course 
of  my  life  have  I  met  a  solicitor  who  could  invest 
money  safely  and  profitably.  Clergymen  I  have 
known,  women  of  all  sorts,  savages,  monoma- 
niacs, criminals,  but  never  solicitors." 

**  I  have  known  some  smart  business  par- 
sons," said  Mr.  Dad  judicially.  ''  One  in  par- 
ticular. Sharp  as  nails.  They  are  a  much 
UTiderestimated  class." 


42  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

' '  Perhaps  it  is  natural  that  a  solicitor  should 
be  a  mid  investor,"  Sir  Eliphaz  pursued  his 
subject.  *^  He  lives  out  of  the  ordinary  world 
in  a  dirty  little  office  in  some  antiquated  inn, 
his  office  fittings  are  fifty  years  out  of  date,  his 
habitual  scenery  consists  of  tin  boxes  painted 
with  the  names  of  dead  and  disreputable  clients ; 
he  has  to  take  the  law  courts,  filled  mth  horse- 
boxes and  men  dressed  up  in  gowns  and  horse- 
hair wigs,  quite  seriously;  nobody  ever  goes 
near  him  but  abnormal  people  or  people  in  ab- 
normal states :  people  upset  by  jealousy,  people 
upset  by  fear,  blackmailed  people,  cheats  trying 
to  dodge  the  law,  lunatics,  litigants  and  legatees. 
The  only  investments  he  ever  discusses  are 
queer  investments.  Naturally  he  loses  all  sense 
of  proportion.  Naturally  he  becomes  insanely 
suspicious ;  and  when  a  client  asks  for  positive 
action  he  flounders  and  gambles." 

**  Naturally,"  said  Mr.  Dad.  ^*  And  here  we 
find  poor  Huss  giving  all  his  business  over — " 

**  Exactly,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz,  and  filled  his 
glass. 

*^  There's  been  a  great  change  in  him  in  the 
last  two  years,"  said  Mr.  Farr.  **  He  let  the 
war  worry  him  for  one  thing. ' ' 

*'  No  good  doing  that,"  said  Mr.  Dad. 

*^  And  even  before  the  war,"   Sir  Eliphaz 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  43 

^^  Even  before  the  war/'  said  Mr.  Farr,  in  a 
pause. 

'^  There  was  a  change,''  said  Sir  Eliphaz. 
*^  He  had  been  bitten  by  educational  theories." 

^^  No  business  for  a  headmaster,"  said  Mr. 
Farr. 

*^  Our  intention  had  always  been  a  great  sci- 
entific and  technical  school,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz. 
*^  He  introduced  Logic  into  the  teaching  of 
plain  English  —  against  my  opinion.  He  en- 
couraged some  of  the  boys  to  read  philosophy." 
All  he  could,"  said  Mr.  Farr. 
I  never  held  with  his  fad  for  teaching  his- 
tory," said  Mr.  Dad.  ^'  He  was  history  mad. 
It  got  worse  and  worse.  What's  history  after 
allf  At  the  best,  it's  over  and  done  with. 
.  .  .  But  he  wouldn  't  argue  upon  it  —  not  rea- 
sonably. He  was  —  overbearing.  He  had  a 
way  of  looking  at  you.  ...  It  was  never  our 
intention  to  make  Woldingstanton  into  a  school 
of  history. ' ' 

**  And  now,  Mr.   Farr,"  said   Sir  Eliphaz, 
*^  what  are  the  particulars  of  the  fire?  " 

It  isn't  for  me  to  criticize,"  said  Mr.  Farr. 
What  I  say,"  said  Mr.  Dad,  projecting  his 
muzzle  with  an  appearance  of  great  determina- 
tion, ^^  is,  fix  responsibility.  Fix  responsibility. 
Here  is  a  door  locked  that  common  sense  dic- 


44  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

tated  should  be  open.    Who  was  responsible!  " 

**  No  one  in  School  House  seems  to  have  been 
especially  responsible  for  that  door  so  far  as  I 
can  ascertain, ' '  said  Mr.  Farr. 

'*  All  responsibility/'  said  Mr.  Dad,  with  an 
expression  of  peevish  insistence,  as  though  Mr. 
Farr  had  annoyed  him,  *  *  all  responsibility  that 
is  not  delegated  rests  with  the  Head.  That's 
a  hard  and  fast  and  primary  rule  of  business 
organization.  In  my  factory  I  say  quite  plainly 
to  everyone  who  comes  into  it,  man  or  woman, 
chick  or  child  .    .    .  " 

Mr.  Dad  was  still  explaining  in  a  series  of 
imaginary  dialogues,  tersely  but  dramatically, 
his  methods  of  delegating  authority,  when  Sir 
Eliphaz  cut  across  the  flow  with,  *^  Eeturning 
to  Mr.  Huss  for  a  moment  .    .    .  " 

The  point  that  Sir  Eliphaz  wanted  to  get  at 
was  whether  Mr.  Huss  expected  to  continue 
headmaster  at  Woldingstanton.  From  some 
chance  phrase  in  a  letter  Sir  Eliphaz  rather 
gathered  that  he  did. 

**  "Well,"  said  Mr.  Farr  portentously,  letting 
the  thing  hang  for  a  moment,  ^^  he  does." 

**  Tcha!  "  said  Mr.  Dad,  and  shut  his  mouth 
tightly  and  waved  his  head  slowly  from  side  to 
side  with  knitted  brows  as  if  he  had  bitten  his 
tongue. 


THE   THREE   VISITORS  45 

**  I  would  be  the  first  to  recognize  the  splen- 
did work  he  did  for  the  school  in  his  opening 
years/'  said  Mr.  Farr.  ^'  I  would  be  the  last 
to  alter  the  broad  lines  of  the  work  as  he  set  it 
out.  Barring  that  I  should  replace  a  certain 
amount  of  the  biological  teaching  and  practi- 
cally all  this  new  history  stuff  by  chemistry  and 
physics.  But  one  has  to  admit  that  Mr.  Huss 
did  not  know  when  to  relinquish  power  nor 
when  to  devolve  responsibility.  We,  all  of  us, 
the  entire  staff  —  it  is  no  mere  personal  griev- 
ance of  mine  —  were  kept,  well,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  in  tutelage.  Rather  than  let  authority  go 
definitely  out  of  his  hands,  he  would  allow  things 
to  drift.  Witness  that  door,  witness  the  busi- 
ness of  the  nurse." 

Mr.  Dad,  with  his  lips  compressed,  nodded 
his  head ;  each  nod  like  the  tap  of  a  hammer. 

**  I  never  believed  in  all  this  overdoing  his- 
tory in  the  school,"  Mr.  Dad  remarked  rather 
disconnectedly.  ^'  If  you  get  rid  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  why  bring  it  all  back  again  in  another 
form !  Why,  I  'm  told  he  taught  'em  things  about 
Assyria.  Assyria!  A  modern  school  ought  to 
be  a  modern  school  —  business  first  and  busi- 
ness last  and  business  all  the  time.  And  teach 
boys  to  work.  We  shall  need  it,  mark  my 
words." 


46  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

^^  A  certain  amount  of  modern  culture," 
waved  Sir  Eliphaz. 

**  Modern/'  said  Mr.  Farr  softly. 

Mr.  Dad  grunted.  ^*  In  my  opinion  that  sort 
of  thing  gives  the  boys  ideas.'' 

Mr.  Farr  steered  his  way  discreetly.  **  Sci- 
ence with  a  due  regard  to  its  technical  applica- 
tions should  certainly  be  the  substantial  part  of 
a  modern  education.''  .    .    . 

They  were  in  the  smoking-room  and  half  way 
through  three  princely  cigars  before  they  got 
beyond  such  fragmentary  detractions  of  the 
fallen  headmaster.  Then  Mr.  Dad  in  the  clear- 
cut  style  of  a  business  man,  brought  his  com- 
panions to  action.  ''  Well,"  said  Mr.  Dad, 
turning  abruptly  upon  Sir  Eliphaz,  '^  what 
about  it?  " 

**  It  is  manifest  that  Woldingstanton  has  to 
enter  on  a  new  phase ;  what  has  happened  brings 
us  to  the  parting  of  the  ways,"  said  Sir  Eli- 
phaz. **  Much  as  I  regret  the  misfortunes  of 
an  old  friend. ' ' 

''  That;'  said  Mr.  Dad,  ''  spells  Farr." 

''  If  he  will  shoulder  the  burthen,"  said  Sir 
Eliphaz,  smiling  upon  Mr.  Farr  not  so  much 
with  his  mouth  as  by  the  most  engaging  convo- 
lutions, curvatures  and  waving  about  of  his 
various  strands  of  hair. 


THE   THREE   VISITORS  47 

"  I  don't  want  to  see  the  school  go  down," 
said  Mr.  Farr.  ^^  I've  given  it  a  good  slice  of 
my  life." 

' '  Eight, ' '  said  Mr.  Dad.  ' '  Right.  File  that. 
That  suits  us.  And  now  how  do  we  set  about 
the  affair  ?  The  next  thing,  I  take  it,  is  to  break 
it  to  Huss.   .    .    .  How?  " 

He  iDaused  to  give  the  ideas  of  his  companions 
a  fair  chance. 

**  Well,  my  idea  is  this.  None  of  us  want  to 
be  hard  on  Mr.  Huss.  Luck  has  been  hard 
enough  as  it  is.  We  want  to  do  this  job  as 
gently  as  we  can.  It  happens  that  I  go  and 
play  golf  at  Sundering-on-Sea  ever  and  again. 
Excellent  links,  well  kept  up  all  things  consid- 
ered, and  the  big  hotel  close  by  does  you  won- 
derfully, the  railway  company  sees  to  that;  in 
spite  of  the  war.  Well,  why  shouldn't  we  all, 
if  Sir  Eliphaz's  engagements  permit,  go  down 
there  in  a  sort  of  casual  way,  and  take  the  op- 
portunity of  a  good  clear  talk  mth  him  and 
settle  it  all  up  I  The  thing's  got  to  be  done,  and 
it  seems  to  me  altogether  more  kindly  to  go 
there  personally  and  put  it  to  him  than  do  it 
by  correspondence.  Very  likely  we  could  put 
it  to  him  in  such  a  way  that  he  himself  would 
suggest  the  very  arrangement  we  want.  You 
particularly.  Sir  Eliphaz,  bein^  as  you  say  an 
old  friend."  .    .    . 


§2 

Since  there  was  little  likelihood  of  Mr.  Huss 
going  away  from  Sundering-on-Sea,  it  did 
not  appear  necessary  to  Mr.  Dad  to  apprise  him 
of  the  projected  visitation.  And  so  these  three 
gentlemen  heard  nothing  about  any  operation 
for  cancer  until  they  reached  that  resort. 

Mr.  Dad  came  do\\m  early  on  Friday  after- 
noon to  the  Golf  Hotel,  where  he  had  already 
engaged  rooms  for  the  party.  He  needed  the 
relaxation  of  the  links  very  badly,  the  task  of 
accumulating  a  balance  sufficiently  large  to 
secure  an  opulent  future  for  British  industry, 
with  which  Mr.  Dad  in  his  straightforward  way 
identified  himself,  was  one  that  in  a  controlled 
establishment  between  the  Scylla  of  aggressive 
labour  and  the  Charybdis  of  the  war-profits  tax, 
strained  his  mind  to  the  utmost.  He  was  joined 
by  Mr.  Farr  at  dinner-time,  and  Sir  Eliphaz, 
who  was  detained  in  London  by  some  negotia- 
tions with  the  American  Government,  arrived 
replete  by  the  dining-car  train.  Mr.  Farr  made 
a  preliminary  reconnaissance  at  Sea  View,  and 
was  the  first  to  hear  of  the  operation. 

48 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  49 

Sir  Alphens  Mengo  was  due  at  Sea  View  by 
the  first  morning  train  on  Saturday.  He  had 
arranged  to  operate  before  lunch.  It  was  clear 
therefore  that  the  only  time  available  for  a  con- 
versation between  the  three  and  Mr.  Huss  was 
between  breakfast  and  the  arrival  of  Sir 
Alpheus. 

Mr.  Huss,  whose  lethargy  had  now  departed, 
displayed  himself  feverishly  anxious  to  talk 
about  the  school.  **  There  are  points  I  must 
make  clear,''  he  said,  ''  vital  points,''  and  so  a 
meeting  was  arranged  for  half -past  nine.  This 
would  give  a  full  hour  before  the  arrival  of  the 
doctors. 

"  He  feels  that  in  a  way  it  will  be  his  testa- 
ment, so  to  speak,"  said  Mr.  Farr.  "  Natu- 
rally he  has  his  own  ideas  about  the  future  of  the 
school.  We  all  have.  I  would  be  the  last  person 
to  suggest  that  he  could  say  anything  about 
Woldingstanton  that  would  not  be  well  worth 
hearing.  Some  of  us  may  have  heard  most  of 
it  before,  and  be  better  able  to  discount  some  of 
his  assertions.  But  that  under  the  present  cir- 
cumstances is  neither  here  nor  there." 


§  3 

Matters  in  the  confined  space  of  Sea  View 
were  not  nearly  so  strained  as  Mr.  Huss  had 
feared.  The  prospect  of  an  operation  was  not 
without  its  agreeable  side  to  Mrs.  Croome.  Pos- 
sibly she  would  have  preferred  that  the  subject 
should  have  been  Mrs.  rather  than  Mr.  Huss, 
but  it  was  clear  that  she  made  no  claim  to  dic- 
tate upon  this  point.  Her  demand  for  special 
fees  to  meet  the  inconveniences  of  the  occasion 
had  been  met  quite  liberally  by  Mr.  Huss.  And 
there  was  a  genuine  appreciation  of  order  and 
method  in  Mrs.  Croome;  she  was  a  furious 
spring-cleaner,  a  hurricane  tidier-up,  her  feel- 
ing for  the  discursive  state  of  Mrs.  Huss 's  hair 
was  almost  as  involuntary  as  a  racial  animosity; 
and  the  swift  dexterous  preparations  of  the 
nurse  who  presently  came  to  convert  the  best 
bedroom  to  surgical  uses,  impressed  her  deeply. 
She  was  allowed  to  help.  Superfluous  hangings 
and  furnishings  were  removed,  everything  was 
thoroughly  scrubbed,  at  the  last  moment  clean 
linen   sheets    of   a   wonderful   hardness    were 

50 


THE  THREE   VISITORS  51 

to  be  spread  over  every  exposed  surface. 
They  were  to  be  brought  in  sterilized  drums. 
The  idea  of  sterilized  drums  fascinated 
her.  She  had  never  heard  of  such  things  be- 
fore. She  mshed  she  could  keep  her  own  linen 
in  a  sterilized  drum  always,  and  let  her  lodgers 
have  something  else  instead. 

She  felt  she  was  going  to  be  a  sort  of  assist- 
ant priestess  at  a  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  of  Mr. 
Huss.  She  had  always  secretly  feared  his  sub- 
missive quiet  as  a  thing  unaccountable  that 
might  at  any  time  turn  upon  her ;  she  suspected 
him  of  ironies ;  and  he  would  be  helpless,  under 
chloroform,  subject  to  examination  with  no  pos- 
sibilities of  disconcerting  repartee.  She  did 
her  best  to  persuade  Dr.  Barrack  that  she  would 
be  useful  in  the  room  during  the  proceedings. 
Her  imagination  conjured  up  a  wonderful  vision 
of  the  Huss  interior  as  a  great  chest  full  of 
strange  and  interesting  viscera  with  the  lid  mde 
open  and  Sir  Alpheus  picking  thoughtfully,  with 
deprecatory  remarks,  amid  its  contents.  But 
that  sight  was  denied  her. 

She  was  very  helpful  and  cheerful  on  the  Sat- 
urday morning,  addressing  herself  to  the  con- 
solation of  Mr.  and  the  bracing-up  of  Mrs.  Huss. 
She  assisted  in  the  final  transformation  of  the 
room. 


62  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

**  It  might  be  a  real  'ospital,'*  she  said. 
**  Nursing  must  be  nice  work.  I  never  thought 
of  it  like  this  before. ' ' 

Mr.  Huss  was  no  longer  depressed  but  flushed 
and  resolute,  but  Mrs.  Huss,  wounded  by  the 
neglect  of  everyone  —  no  one  seemed  to  con- 
sider for  a  moment  what  she  must  be  feeling  — 
remained  very  much  in  her  own  room,  working 
inefficiently  upon  the  mourning  that  might  now 
be  doubly  needed. 


Mr.  Huss  knew  Mr.  Farr  very  well.  For  the 
last  ten  years  it  had  been  his  earnest  desire  to 
get  rid  of  him,  but  he  had  been  difficult  to  replace 
because  of  his  real  accomplishment  in  technical 
chemistry.  In  the  course  of  their  ^ve  minutes ' 
talk  in  his  bedroom  on  Friday  evening,  Mr.  Huss 
grasped  the  situation.  Woldingstanton,  his  cre- 
ation, his  life  work,  was  to  be  taken  out  of  his 
hands,  and  in  favour  of  this,  his  most  soul-dead- 
ening assistant.  He  had  been  foolish  no  doubt, 
but  he  had  never  anticipated  that.  He  had  never 
supposed  that  Farr  would  dare. 

He  thought  hard  through  that  long  night  of 
Friday.  His  pain  was  no  distraction.  He  had 
his  intentions  very  ready  and  clear  in  his  mind 
when  his  three  visitors  arrived. 

He  had  insisted  upon  getting  up  and  dressing 
fully. 

*^  I  can't  talk  about  Woldingstanton  in  bed,'' 
he  said.  The  doctor  was  not  there  to  gainsay 
him. 

Sir  Eliphaz  was  the  first  to  arrive,  and  Mrs. 

53 


54  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

Huss  retrieved  him  from  Mrs.  Croome  in  the 
passage  and  brought  him  in.  He  was  wearing 
a  Norfolk  jacket  suit  of  a  coarse  yet  hairy  con- 
sistency and  of  a  pale  sage  green  colour.  He 
shone  greatly  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs.  Huss.  **  I 
can't  help  thinking  of  you,  dear  lady/'  he  said, 
bowing  over  her  hand,  and  all  his  hair  was  for 
a  moment  sad  and  sympathetic  like  a  sick  Skye 
terrier's.  Mr.  Dad  and  Mr.  Farr  entered  a  mo- 
ment later;  Mr.  Farr  in  grey  flannel  trousers 
and  a  brown  jacket,  and  Mr.  Dad  in  a  natty  dark 
grey  suit  with  a  luminous  purple  waistcoat. 

**  My  dear,"  said  Mr.  Huss  to  his  wife,  **  I 
must  be  alone  with  these  gentlemen, ' '  and  when 
she  seemed  disposed  to  linger  near  the  under- 
standing warmth  of  Sir  Eliphaz,  he  added, 
<<  Figures,  my  dear  —  Finance/'  and  drove  her 
forth.  .    .    . 

*^  'Pon  my  honour,"  said  Mr.  Dad,  coming 
close  up  to  the  armchair,  wrinkling  his  muzzle 
and  putting  through  his  compliments  in  good 
business-like  style  before  coming  to  the  harder 
stuff  in  hand;  *^  I  don't  like  to  see  you  like  this, 
Mr.  Huss." 

'■  ^  Nor  does  Sir  Eliphaz,  I  hope  —  nor  Farr. 
Please  find  yourselves  chairs." 

And  while  Mr.  Farr  made  protesting  noises 
and  Sir  Eliphaz  waved  his  hair  about  before 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  55 

beginning  the  little  speech  he  had  prepared, 
Mr.  Huss  took  the  discourse  out  of  their  mouths 
and  began: 

*  *  I  know  perfectly  well  the  task  you  have  set 
yourselves.  You  have  come  to  make  an  end  of 
me  as  headmaster  of  Woldingstanton.  And  Mr. 
Farr  has  very  obligingly  .    .    . ' ' 

He  held  up  his  white  and  wasted  hand  as  Mr. 
Farr  began  to  disavow. 

''  No/'  said  Mr.  Huss.  ''  But  before  you 
three  gentlemen  proceed  with  your  office,  I 
should  like  to  tell  you  something  of  what  the 
school  and  my  work  in  it,  and  my  work  for 
education,  is  to  me.  I  am  a  man  of  little  more 
than  fifty.  A  month  ago  I  counted  with  a  rea- 
sonable confidence  upon  twenty  years  more  of 
work  before  I  relaxed.  .  .  .  Then  these  mis- 
fortunes rained  upon  me.  I  have  lost  all  my 
private  independence;  there  have  been  these 
shocking  deaths  in  the  school ;  my  son,  my  only 
son  .  .  .  killed  .  .  .  trouble  has  darkened 
the  love  and  kindness  of  my  wife  .  .  .  and 
now  my  body  is  suffering  so  that  my  mind  is 
like  a  swimmer  struggling  through  waves  of 
pain  .  .  .  far  from  land.  .  .  .  These  are 
heavy  blows.  But  the  hardest  blow  of  all, 
harder  to  bear  than  any  of  these  others  —  I  do 
not  speak  rashly,  gentlemen,  I  have  thought  it 


56  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

out  through  an  endless  night  —  the  last  blow 
will  be  this  rejection  of  my  life  work.  That 
will  strike  the  inmost  me,  the  heart  and  soul 
of  me.   .    .    . '' 

He  paused. 

*^  You  mustn't  take  it  quite  like  that,  Mr. 
Huss,''  protested  Mr.  Dad.  ^^  It  isn't  fair  to 
us  to  put  it  like  that." 

*^  I  want  you  to  listen  to  me,"  said  Mr.  Huss. 

^^  Only  the  very  kindest  motives,"  continued 
Mr.  Dad. 

**  Let  me  speak,"  said  Mr.  Huss,  with  the 
voice  of  authority  that  had  ruled  Woldings tan- 
ton  for  five  and  twenty  years.  ^*  I  cannot 
wrangle  and  contradict.  At  most  we  have  an 
hour. ' ' 

Mr.  Dad  made  much  the  same  sound  that  a 
dog  will  make  when  it  has  proposed  to  bark  and 
has  been  told  to  get  under  the  table.  For  a  time 
he  looked  an  ill-used  man. 

*^  To  end  my  work  in  the  school  will  be  to 
end  me  altogether.  .  .  .  I  do  not  see  why  I 
should  not  speak  plainly  to  you,  gentlemen,  sit- 
uated as  I  am  here.  I  do  not  see  why  I  should 
not  talk  to  you  for  once  in  my  own  language. 
Pain  and  death  are  our  interlocutors ;  this  is  a 
rare  and  raw  and  bleeding  occasion ;  in  an  hour 
or  so  the  women  may  be  laying  out  my  body  and 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  57 

I  may  be  silent  for  ever.  I  have  hidden  my 
rehgion,  but  why  should  I  hide  it  now?  To  you 
I  have  always  tried  to  seem  as  practical  and 
self-seeking  as  possible,  but  in  secret  I  have 
been  a  fanatic;  and  Woldingstanton  was  the 
altar  on  which  I  offered  myself  to  God.  I  have 
done  ill  and  feebly  there  I  know;  I  have  been 
indolent  and  rash;  those  were  my  weaknesses; 
but  I  have  done  my  best.  To  the  limits  of  my 
strength  and  knowledge  I  have  served  God. 
.  .  .  And  now  in  this  hour  of  darkness  where 
is  this  God  that  I  have  served?  Why  does  he 
not  stand  here  between  me  and  this  last  injury 
you  would  do  to  the  work  I  have  dedicated  to 
him?  '' 

At  these  words  Mr.  Dad  turned  horrified  eyes 
to  Mr.  Farr. 

But  Mr.  Huss  went  on  as  though  talking  to 
himself.  '^  In  the  night  I  have  looked  into  my 
heart;  I  have  sought  in  my  heart  for  base 
motives' and  secret  sins.  I  have  put  myself  on 
trial  to  find  why  God  should  hide  himself  from 
me  now,  and  I  can  find  no  reason  and  no  justifi- 
cation. ...  In  the  bitterness  of  my  heart  I 
am  tempted  to  give  way  to  you  and  to  tell  you 
to  take  the  school  and  to  do  just  what  you  mil 
with  it.  .  .  .  The  nearness  of  death  makes  the 
familiar  things  of  experience  flimsy  and  unreal, 


58  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

and  far  more  real  to  me  now  is  this  darkness 
that  broods  over  me,  as  blight  will  sometimes 
overhang  the  world  at  noon,  and  mocks  me  day 
and  night  with  a  perpetual  challenge  to  curse 
God  and  die.  .    .    . 

**  Why  do  I  not  curse  God  and  die?  Why  do 
I  cling  to  my  work  when  the  God  to  whom  I 
dedicated  it  is  —  silent?  Because,  I  suppose, 
I  still  hope  for  some  sign  of  reassurance.  Be- 
cause I  am  not  yet  altogether  defeated.  I 
would  go  on  telling  you  why  I  want  Wolding- 
stanton  to  continue  on  its  present  lines  and  why 
it  is  impossible  for  you,  why  it  will  be  a  sort  of 
murder  for  you  to  hand  it  over  to  Farr  here,  if 
my  pain  were  ten  times  what  it  is.   .    .    .'' 

At  the  mention  of  his  name,  Mr.  Farr  started 
and  looked  first  at  Mr.  Dad,  and  then  at  Sir 
Eliphaz.  *  ^  Eeally, ' '  he  said,  *  *  really !  One 
might  think  I  had  conspired — '' 

^*  I  am  afraid,  Mr.  Huss,^'  said  Sir  Eliphaz, 
with  a  large  reassuring  gesture  to  the  technical 
master,  **  that  the  suggestion  that  Mr.  Farr 
should  be  your  successor  came  in  the  first 
instance  from  me.'' 

**  You  must  reconsider  it,''  said  Mr.  Huss, 
moistening  his  lips  and  staring  steadfastly  in 
front  of  him. 

Here  Mr.  Dad  broke  out  in  a  querulous  voice : 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  59 

'^  Are  you  really  in  a  state,  Mr.  Huss,  to  discuss 
a  matter  like  this  —  feverish  and  suffering  as 
you  are!  '' 

'''  I  could  not  be  in  a  better  frame  for  this 
discussion, '  ^  said  Mr.  Huss.  ...  '^  And  now 
for  what  I  have  to  say  about  the  school :  — 
Woldingstanton,  when  I  came  to  it,  was  a  hum- 
drum school  of  some  seventy  boys,  following  a 
worn-out  routine.  A  little  Latin  was  taught 
and  less  Greek,  chiefly  in  order  to  say  that 
Greek  was  taught ;  some  scraps  of  mathematical 
processes,  a  few  rags  of  general  knowledge, 
English  history  —  not  human  history,  mind  you, 
but  just  the  national  brand,  cut  dried  flowers 
from  the  past  with  no  roots  and  no  meaning,  a 
smattering  of  French.  .  .  .  That  was  prac- 
tically all;  it  was  no  sort  of  education,  it  was 
a  mere  education-like  posturing.  And  to-day, 
what  has  that  school  become  ?  ' ' 

'^  We  never  grudged  you  money,"  said  Sir 
Eliphaz. 

*^  Nor  loyal  help,''  said  Mr.  Farr,  but  in  a 
half  whisper. 

**  I  am  not  thinking  of  its  visible  prosperity. 
The  houses  and  laboratories  and  museums  that 
have  grown  about  that  nucleus  are  nothing  in 
themselves.  The  reality  of  a  school  is  not  in 
buildings  and  numbers  but  in  matters  of  the 


60  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

mind  and  soul.  Woldingstanton  has  become  a 
torch  at  which  lives  are  set  aflame.  I  have  lit 
a  candle  there  —  the  winds  of  fate  may  yet  blow 
it  into  a  world-wide  blaze." 

As  Mr.  Huss  said  these  things  he  was  uplifted 
by  enthusiasm,  and  his  pain  sank  down  out  of 
his  consciousness. 

*^  Wliat,"  he  said,  *^  is  the  task  of  the  teacher 
in  the  worlds  It  is  the  greatest  of  all  human  „ 
tasks.  It  is  to  ensure  that  Man,  Man  the 
Divine,  grows  in  the  souls  of  men.  For  what 
is  a  man  without  instruction?  He  is  born  as 
the  beasts  are  born,  a  greedy  egotism,  a  clutch- 
ing desire,  a  thing  of  lusts  and  fears.  He  can 
regard  nothing  except  in  relation  to  himself. 
Even  his  love  is  a  bargain ;  and  his  utmost  eif  ort 
is  vanity  because  he  has  to  die.  And  it  is  we 
teachers  alone  who  can  lift  him  out  of  that  self- 
preoccupation.  We  teachers.  .  .  .  We  can  re- 
lease him  into  a  wider  circle  of  ideas  beyond 
himself  in  which  he  can  at  length  forget  himself 
and  his  meagre  personal  ends  altogether.  We 
can  open  his  eyes  to  the  past  and  to  the  future 
and  to  the  undying  life  of  Man.  So  through 
us  and  through  us  only,  he  escapes  from  death 
and  futility.  An  untaught  man  is  but  himself 
alone,  as  lonely  in  his  ends  and  destiny  as  any 
beast ;  a  man  instructed  is  a  man  enlarged  from 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  61 

that  narrow  prison  of  self  into  participation 
in  an  undying  life,  that  began  we  know  not 
when,  that  grows  above  and  beyond  the  great- 
ness of  the  stars.  .    .    .'' 

He  spoke  as  if  he  addressed  some  other  hearer 
than  the  three  before  him.  Mr.  Dad,  with  eye- 
brows raised  and  lips  compressed,  nodded 
silently  to  Mr.  Farr  as  if  his  worst  suspicions 
were  confirmed,  and  there  were  signs  and  sig- 
nals that  Sir  Eliphaz  was  about  to  speak,  when 
Mr.  Huss  resumed. 

*  *  For  ^ve  and  twenty  years  I  have  ruled  over 
Woldingstanton,  and  for  all  that  time  I  have 
been  giving  sight  to  the  blind.  I  have  given 
understanding  to  some  thousands  of  boys.  All 
those  routines  of  teaching  that  had  become  dead 
we  made  live  again  there.  My  boys  have  learnt 
the  history  of  mankind  so  that  it  has  become 
their  own  adventure;  they  have  learnt  geog- 
raphy so  that  the  world  is  their  possession;  I 
have  had  lang-uages  taught  to  make  the  past 
live  again  in  their  minds  and  to  be  windows 
upon  the  souls  of  alien  peoples.  Science  has 
played  its  proper  part;  it  has  taken  my  boys 
into  the  secret  places  of  matter  and  out  among 
the  nebulas.  .  .  .  Always  I  have  kept  Farr  and 
his  utilities  in  their  due  subordination.  Some 
of  my  boys  have  already  made  good  business 


62  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

men  —  because  they  were  more  than  business 
men.  .  .  .  But  I  have  never  sought  to  make 
business  men  and  I  never  will.  My  boys  have 
gone  into  the  professions,  into  the  services,  into 
the  great  world  and  done  well  —  I  have  had  dull 
boys  and  intractable  boys,  but  nearly  all  have 
gone  into  the  world  gentlemen,  broad-minded, 
good-mannered,  understanding  and  unselfish, 
masters  of  self,  servants  of  man,  because  the 
whole  scheme  of  their  education  has  been  to 
release  them  from  base  and  narrow  things. 
.  .  .  When  the  war  came,  my  boys  were 
ready.  .  .  .  They  have  gone  to  their  deaths  — 
how  many  have  gone  to  their  deaths !  My  own 
son  among  them.  ...  I  did  not  grudge  him. 
.  .  .  Woldingstanton  is  a  new  school;  its  tra- 
dition has  scarcely  begun;  the  list  of  its  old 
boys  is  now  so  terribly  depleted  that  its  young 
tradition  wilts  like  a  torn  seedling.  .  .  .  But 
still  we  can  keep  on  with  it,  still  that  tradition 
will  grow,  if  my  flame  still  burns.  But  my 
teaching  must  go  on  as  I  have  planned  it.  It 
must.  It  must.  .  .  .  What  has  made  my  boys 
all  that  they  are,  has  been  the  history,  the 
biological  science,  the  philosophy.  For  these 
things  are  wisdom.  All  the  rest  is  training  and 
mere  knowledge.  If  the  school  is  to  live,  the 
head  must  still  be  a  man  who  can  teach  history 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  63 

—  history  in  the  widest  sense;  he  must  be 
philosopher,  biologist,  and  archaeologist  as  well 
as  scholar.  And  you  would  hand  that  task  to 
Farr !  Farr !  Farr  here  has  never  even  touched 
the  essential  work  of  the  school.  He  does  not 
know  what  it  is.  His  mind  is  no  more  opened 
than  the  cricket  professionaPs.'' 

Mr.  Dad  made  an  impatient  noise. 

The  sick  man  went  on  with  his  burning  eyes 
on  Farr,  his  lips  bloodless. 

^*  He  thinks  of  chemistry  and  physics  not  as 
a  help  to  understanding  but  as  a  help  to  trading. 
So  long  as  he  has  been  at  Woldingstanton  he 
has  been  working  furtively  with  our  materials 
in  the  laboratories,  dreaming  of  some  profitable 
patent.  Oh !  I  know  you,  Farr.  Do  you  think 
I  didn't  see  because  I  didn't  choose  to  complain? 
If  he  could  have  discovered  some  profitable 
patent  he  would  have  abandoned  teaching  the 
day  he  did  so.  He  would  have  been  even  as  you 
are.  But  with  a  lifeless  imagination  you  can- 
not even  invent  patentable  things.  He  would 
talk  to  the  boys  of  the  empire  at  times,  but  the 
empire  to  him  is  no  more  than  a  trading  con- 
spiracy fenced  about  with  tariffs.  It  goes  on 
to  nothing.  .  .  .  And  he  thinks  we  are  fight- 
ing the  Germans,  he  thinks  my  dear  and  precious 
boy  gave  his  life  and  that  all  these  other  brave 


64  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

lads  beyond  counting  died,  in  order  that  we 
might  take  the  place  of  the  Germans  as  the 
chapman-bullies  of  the  world.  That  is  the 
measure  of  his  mind.  He  has  no  religion,  no 
faith,  no  devotion.  Why  does  he  want  my 
place?  Because  he  wants  to  serve  as  I  have 
served?  No !  But  because  he  envies  my  house, 
my  income,  my  headship.  Whether  I  live  or  die, 
it  is  impossible  that  Woldingstanton,  my  Wol- 
dingstanton,  should  live  under  his  hand.  Give 
it  to  him,  and  in  a  little  while  it  will  be  dead. ' ' 


§5 

'*  Gentlemen!  "  Mr.  Farr  protested  with  a 
white  perspiring  face. 

^*  I  had  no  idea,''  ejaculated  Mr.  Dad,  "  I  had 
no  idea  that  things  had  gone  so  far. ' ' 

Sir  Eliphaz  indicated  by  waving  his  hand  that 
his  associates  might  allay  themselves ;  he  recog- 
nized that  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  speak. 

*^  It  is  deplorable,"  Sir  Eliphaz  began. 

He  put  down  his  hands  and  gripped  the  seat 
of  his  chair  as  if  to  hold  himself  on  to  it  very 
tightly,  and  he  looked  very  hard  at  the  horizon 
as  if  he  was  trying  to  decipher  some  remote 
inscription.  **  You  have  imported  a  tone  into 
this  discussion,''  he  tried. 

He  got  off  at  the  third  attempt.  ^*  It  is  an 
extremely  painful  thing  to  me,  Mr.  Huss,  that 
to  you,  standing  as  you  do  on  the  very  brink  of 
the  Great  Chasm,  it  should  be  necessary  to 
speak  in  any  but  the  most  cordial  and  helpful 
tones.  But  it  is  my  duty,  it  is  our  duty,  to  hold 
firmly  to  those  principles  which  have  always 
guided  us  as  governors  of  the  Woldingstanton 
F  65 


66  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

School.  You  speak,  I  must  say  it,  with  an  ex- 
treme arrogance  of  an  institution  to  which  all 
of  us  here  have  in  some  measure  contributed; 
you  speak  as  though  you,  and  you  alone,  were 
its  creator  and  guide.  You  must  pardon  me, 
Mr.  Huss,  if  I  remind  you  of  the  facts,  the  eter- 
nal verities  of  the  story.  The  school,  sir,  was 
founded  in  the  spacious  days  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, and  many  a  good  man  guided  its  fortunes 
down  to  the  time  when  an  unfortunate  —  a  di- 
version of  its  endoAvments  led  to  its  temporary 
cessation.  The  Charity  Conamissioners  revived 
it  after  an  inquiry  some  fifty  years  ago,  and  it 
has  been  largely  the  lavish  generosity  of  the 
Papermakers^  Guild,  of  which  I  and  Dad  are 
humble  members,  that  has  stimulated  its  expan- 
sion under  you.  Loth  as  I  am  to  cross  your 
mood,  Mr.  Huss,  while  you  are  in  pain  and  anx- 
iety, I  am  bound  to  recall  to  you  these  things 
which  have  made  your  work  possible.  You 
could  not  have  made  bricks  without  straw,  you 
could  not  have  built  up  Woldingstanton  without 
the  money  obtained  by  that  commercialism  for 
which  you  display  such  unqualified  contempt. 
We  sordid  cits  it  was  who  planted,  who  watered. 

Mr.  Huss  seemed  about  to  speak,  but  said 

nothing. 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  67 

"  Exactly  what  I  say,"  said  Mr.  Dad,  turning 
for  confirmation  to  Mr.  Farr.  ""  The  school  is 
essentially  a  modern  commercial  school.  It 
should  be  run  as  that.'' 

Mr.  Farr  nodded  his  white  face  ambiguously 
with  his  eye  on  Sir  Eliphaz. 

'^  I  should  have  been  chary,  Mr.  Huss,  of 
wrangling  about  our  particular  shares  and  con- 
tributions on  an  occasion  so  solemn  as  this,  but 
since  you  will  have  it  so,  since  you  challenge 
discussion.   .    .    ." 

He  turned  to  his  colleagues  as  if  for  support. 

'  *  Go  on, "  said  Mr.  Dad.    ' '  Facts  are  facts. ' ' 


§6 

Sir  Elipliaz  cleared  his  throat,  and  continued 
to  read  the  horizon. 

**  I  have  raised  these  points,  Mr.  Huss,  by- 
way of  an  opening.  The  gist  of  what  I  have 
to  say  lies  deeper.  So  far  I  have  dealt  with 
the  things  you  have  said  only  in  relation  to  us ; 
as  against  us  you  assume  your  own  righteous- 
ness, you  flout  our  poor  judgments,  you  sweep 
them  aside;  the  school  must  be  continued  on 
your  lines,  the  teaching  must  follow  your 
schemes.  You  can  imagine  no  alternative  opin- 
ion. God  forbid  that  I  should  say  a  word  in  my 
own  defence;  I  have  given  freely  both  of  my 
time  and  of  my  money  to  our  school;  it  would 
tax  my  secretaries  now  to  reckon  up  how  much; 
but  I  make  no  claims.  .    .    .  None.   .    .    . 

*^  But  let  me  now  put  all  this  discussion  upon 
a  wider  and  a  graver  footing.  It  is  not  only  us 
and  our  poor  intentions  you  arraign.  Strange 
things  have  dropped  from  you,  Mr.  Huss,  in 
this  discussion,  things  it  has  at  once  pained  and 
astonished  me  to  hear  from  you.    You  have 

68 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  69 

spoken  not  only  of  man's  ingratitude,  bnt  of 
God's.  I  could  scarcely  believe  my  ears,  but 
indeed  I  heard  you  say  that  God  was  silent, 
unhelpful,  and  that  he  too  had  deserted  you. 
In  spite  of  the  most  meritorious  exertions  on 
your  part.  .  .  .  Standing  as  you  do  on  the 
very  margin  of  the  Great  Secret,  I  want  to  plead 
very  earnestly  with  you  against  all  that  you 
have  said.'' 

Sir  Eliphaz  seemed  to  meditate  remotely.  He 
returned  like  a  soaring  vulture  to  his  victim. 
*'  I  would  be  the  last  man  to  obtrude  my  reli- 
gious feelings  upon  anyone.  ...  I  make  no 
parade  of  religion,  Mr.  Huss,  none  at  all.  Many 
people  think  me  no  better  than  an  unbeliever. 
But  here  I  am  bound  to  make  my  confession.  I 
owe  much  to  God,  Mr.  Huss.   .    .    .  " 

He  glowered  at  the  sick  man.  He  abandoned 
his  grip  upon  the  seat  of  his  chair  for  a  moment, 
to  make  a  gesture  with  his  hairy  claw  of  a  hand. 
*^  Your  attitude  to  my  God  is  a  far  deeper 
offence  to  me  than  any  merely  personal  attack 
could  be.  Under  his  chastening  blows,  under 
trials  that  humbler  spirits  would  receive  with 
thankfulness  and  construe  as  lessons  and  warn- 
ings, you  betray  yourself  more  proud,  more  self- 
assured,  more  —  froward  is  not  too  harsh  a 
word  —  more  froward,  Mr.  Huss,  than  you  were 


70  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

even  in  the  days  when  we  used  to  fret  under  you 
on  Founder's  Day  in  the  Great  Hall,  when  you 
would  dictate  to  us  that  here  you  must  have  an 
extension  and  there  you  must  have  a  museum  or 
a  picture  room  or  what  not,  leaving  nothing  to 
opinion,  making  our  gifts  a  duty.  .  .  .  You 
will  not  recognise  the  virtue  of  gifts  and  graces 
either  in  man  or  God.  .  .  .  Cannot  you  see, 
my  dear  Mr.  Huss,  the  falsity  of  your  position? 
It  is  upon  that  point  that  I  want  to  talk  to  you 
now.  God  does  not  smite  man  needlessly.  This 
world  is  all  one  vast  intention,  and  not  a  spar- 
row falls  to  the  ground  unless  He  wills  that 
sparrow  to  fall.  Is  your  heart  so  sure  of  itself? 
Does  nothing  that  has  happened  suggest  to  you 
that  there  may  be  something  in  your  conduct 
and  direction  of  Woldingstanton  that  has  made 
it  not  quite  so  acceptable  an  offering  to  God  as 
you  have  imagined  it  to  be  ?  ' ' 

Sir  Eliphaz  paused  with  an  air  of  giving  Mr. 
Huss  his  chance,  but  meeting  with  no  response, 
he  resumed:  *^  I  am  an  old  man,  Mr.  Huss,  and 
I  have  seen  much  of  the  world  and  more  par- 
ticularly of  the  world  of  finance  and  industry, 
a  world  of  swift  opportunities  and  sudden 
temptations.  I  have  watched  the  careers  of 
many  young  men  of  parts,  who  have  seemed  to 
be  under  the  impression  that  the  world  had  been 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  71 

waiting  for  them  overlong;  I  have  seen  more 
promotions,  schemes  and  enterprises,  great  or 
grandiose,  than  I  care  to  recall.  Developing 
Woldingstanton  from  the  mere  endowed  school 
of  a  market-town  it  was,  to  its  present  position, 
has  been  for  me  a  subordinate  incident,  a  holi- 
day task,  a  piece  of  by-play  upon  a  crowded 
scene.  My  experiences  have  been  on  a  far 
greater  scale.  Far  greater.  And  in  all  my 
experience  I  have  never  seen  what  I  should  call 
a  really  right-minded  man  perish  or  an  innocent 
dealer  —  provided,  that  is,  that  he  took  ordinary 
precautions  —  destroyed.  Ups  and  downs  no 
doubt  there  are,  for  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad. 
I  have  seen  the  foolish  taking  root  for  a  time  — 
it  was  but  for  a  time.  I  have  watched  the 
manoeuvres  of  some  exceedingly  crafty  men. 

Sir  Eliphaz  shook  his  head  slowly  from  side 
to  side  and  all  the  hairs  on  his  head  waved 
about. 

He  hesitated  for  a  moment,  and  decided  to 
favour  his  hearers  with  a  scrap  of  auto- 
biography. 

*^  Quite  recently,''  he  began,  **  there  was  a 
fellow  came  to  us,  just  as  we  were  laying  down 
our  plant  for  production  on  a  large  scale.  He 
was  a  very  plausible,  energetic  young  fellow 


72  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

indeed,  an  American  Armenian.  Well,  he  hap- 
pened to  know  somehow  that  we  were  going  to 
use  kaolin  from  felspar,  a  by-product  of  the  new 
potash  process,  and  he  had  got  hold  of  a  scheme 
for  washing  London  clay  that  produced,  he 
assured  us,  an  accessible  kaolin  just  as  good  for 
our  purpose  and  not  a  tenth  of  the  cost  of  the 
Norwegian  stuff.  It  would  have  reduced  our 
prime  cost  something  like  thirty  per  cent.  Let 
alone  tonnage.  Excuse  these  technicalities. 
On  the  face  of  it  it  was  a  thoroughly  good  thing. 
The  point  was  that  I  knew  all  along  that  his 
stuff  retained  a  certain  amount  of  sulphur  and 
couldn't  possibly  make  a  building  block  to  last. 
That  wouldn't  prevent  us  selling  and  using  the 
stuff  with  practical  impunity.  It  wasn't  up  to 
us  to  know.  No  one  could  have  made  us  liable. 
The  thing  indeed  looked  so  plain  and  safe  that 
I  admit  it  tempted  me  sorely.  And  then,  Mr. 
Huss,  God  came  in.  I  received  a  secret  inti- 
mation. I  want  to  tell  you  of  this  in  all  good 
faith  and  simplicity.  In  the  night  when  all  the 
world  was  deep  in  sleep,  I  awoke.  And  I  was 
in  the  extremest  terror;  my  very  bones  were 
shaking;  I  sat  up  in  my  bed  afraid  almost  to 
touch  the  switch  of  the  electric  light;  my  hair 
stood  on  end.  I  could  see  nothing,  I  could  hear 
nothing,  but  it  was  as  if  a  spirit  passed  in  front 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  73 

of  my  face.  And  in  spite  of  the  silence  some- 
thing seemed  to  be  saying  to  me :  *  How  about 
God,  Sir  Eliphaz?  Have  you  at  last  forgotten 
Him  ?  How  can  you,  that  would  dwell  in  houses 
of  clay,  whose  foundation  is  the  dust,  escape  His 
judgments?  '  That  was  all,  Mr.  Huss,  just  that. 
*  Whose  foundation  is  the  dust!  '  Straight  to 
the  point.  Well,  Mr.  Huss,  I  am  not  a  religious 
man,  but  I  threw  over  that  Armenian. '  ^ 

Mr.  Dad  made  a  sound  to  intimate  that  he 
would  have  done  the  same. 

'*  I  mention  this  experience,  this  interven- 
tion—  and  it  is  not  the  only  one  of  which  I 
could  tell  —  because  I  want  you  to  get  my  view 
that  if  an  enterprise,  even  though  it  is  as  fair 
and  honest-seeming  a  business  as  Woldingstan- 
ton  School,  begins  suddenly  to  crumple  and  wilt, 
it  means  that  somehow,  somewhere  you  must 
have  been  putting  the  wrong  sort  of  clay  into 
it.  It  means  not  that  God  is  wrong  and  going 
back  upon  you,  but  that  you  are  wrong.  You 
may  be  a  great  and  famous  teacher  now,  Mr. 
Huss,  thanks  not  a  little  to  the  pedestal  we  have 
made  for  you,  but  God  is  a  greater  and  more 
famous  teacher.  He  manifestly  you  have  not 
convinced,  even  if  you  could  have  convinced  us, 
of  Woldingstanton's  present  perfection.  .  .  . 
That  is  practically  all  I  have  to  say.    When 


i  i 


74  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

we  propose,  in  all  humility,  to  turn  the  school 
about  into  new  and  less  pretentious  courses  and 
you  oppose  us,  that  is  our  answer.  If  you  had 
done  as  well  and  wisely  as  you  declare,  you 
would  not  be  in  this  position  and  this  discussion 
would  never  have  arisen. ' ' 

He  paused. 

**  Said  with  truth  and  dignity,"  said  Mr. 
Dad.  ^  ^  You  have  put  my  opinion,  Sir  Eliphaz, 
better  than  I  could  have  put  it  myself.  I  thank 
you. ' ' 

He  coughed  briefly. 


§7 

^*  The  question  you  put  to  me  I  have  put  to 
myself,'.'  said  Mr.  Huss,  and  thought  deeply  for 
a  little  while.   .    .    . 

^'  No,  I  do  not  feel  convicted  of  wrong-doing. 
I  still  believe  the  work  I  set  myself  to  do  was 
right,  right  in  spirit  and  intention,  right  in  plan 
and  method.  You  invite  me  to  confess  my 
faith  broken  and  in  the  dust ;  and  my  faith  was 
never  so  sure.  There  is  a  God  in  my  heart,  in 
my  heart  at  least  there  is  a  God,  who  has  always 
guided  me  to  right  and  who  guides  me  now. 
My  conscience  remains  unassailable.  These 
afflictions  that  you  speak  of  as  trials  and  warn- 
ings I  can  only  see  as  inexplicable  disasters. 
They  perplex  me,  but  they  do  not  cow  me.  They 
strike  me  as  pointless  and  irrelevant  events." 

*  ^  But  this  is  terrible !  ' '  said  Mr.  Dad,  deeply 
shocked. 

^^  You  push  me  back.  Sir  Eliphaz,  from  the 
discussion  of  our  school  affairs  to  more  funda- 
mental questions.  You  have  raised  the  prob- 
lem of  the  moral  government  of  the  world,  a 

75 


76  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

problem  that  has  been  distressing  my  mind 
since  I  first  came  here  to  Sundering,  whether 
indeed  failure  is  condemnation  and  success  the 
sunshine  of  God's  approval.  You  believe  that 
the  great  God  of  the  stars  and  seas  and  moun- 
tains is  attentive  to  our  conduct  and  responds 
to  it.  His  sense  of  right  is  the  same  sense  of 
right  as  ours ;  he  endorses  a  common  aim.  Your 
prosperity  is  the  mark  of  your  harmony  with 
that  supreme  God.   .    .    . ' ' 

**  I  wouldn't  go  so  far  as  that,"  Mr.  Dad 
interjected.     *^  No.     No  arrogance." 

^^  And  my  misfortunes  express  his  disap- 
proval. Well,  I  have  believed  that;  I  have  be- 
lieved that  the  rightness  of  a  schoolmaster's 
conscience  must  needs  be  the  same  thing  as  the 
rightness  of  destiny,  I  too  had  fallen  into  that 
comforting  persuasion  of  prosperity;  but  this 
series  of  smashing  experiences  I  have  had,  cul- 
minating in  your  proposal  to  wipe  out  the  whole 
effect  and  significance  of  my  life,  brings  me 
face  to  face  with  the  fundamental  question 
whether  the  order  of  the  great  universe,  the  God 
of  the  stars,  has  any  regard  or  relationship 
whatever  to  the  problems  of  our  consciences 
and  the  efforts  of  man  to  do  right.  That  is  a 
question  that  echoes  to  me  down  the  ages.  So 
far  I  have  always  professed  myself  a  Chris- 
tian.  .    .    . " 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  77 

'*  Well,  I  should  hope  so,''  said  Mr.  Dad, 
**  considering  the  terms  of  the  school's  foun- 
dation." 

**  For,  I  take  it,  the  creeds  declare  in  a  beau- 
tiful symbol  that  the  God  who  is  present  in  our 
hearts  is  one  with  the  universal  father  and  at 
the  same  time  his  beloved  Son,  continually  and 
eternally  begotten  from  the  universal  father- 
hood, and  crucified  only  to  conquer.  He  has 
come  into  our  poor  lives  to  raise  them  up  at 
last  to  Himself.  But  to  believe  that  is  to  believe 
in  the  significance  and  continuity  of  the  whole 
effort  of  mankind.  The  life  of  man  must  be 
like  the  perpetual  spreading  of  a  fire.  If  right 
and  wrong  are  to  perish  together  indifferently, 
if  there  is  aimless  and  fruitless  suffering,  if 
there  opens  no  hope  for  an  eternal  survival  in 
consequences  of  all  good  things,  then  there  is 
no  meaning  in  such  a  belief  as  Christianity.  It 
is  a  mere  superstition  of  priests  and  sacrifices, 
and  I  have  read  things  into  it  that  were  never 
truly  there.  The  rushlight  of  our  faith  burns 
in  a  windy  darkness  that  mil  see  no  dawn." 

**  Nay,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz,  **  nay.  If  there  is 
God  in  your  work  we  cannot  destroy  it. ' ' 

**  You  are  doing  your  best,"  said  Mr.  Huss, 
**  and  now  I  am  not  sure  that  you  will  fail. 
...     At  one  time  I  should  have  defied  you, 


78  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

but  now  I  am  not  sure.  ...  I  have  sat  here 
through  some  dreary  and  dreadful  days,  and 
lain  awake  through  some  interminable  nights; 
I  have  thought  of  many  things  that  men  in  their 
days  of  prosperity  are  apt  to  dismiss  from  their 
minds ;  and  I  am  no  longer  sure  of  the  goodness 
of  the  world  without  us  or  in  the  plan  of  Fate. 
Perhaps  it  is  only  in  us  within  our  hearts  that 
the  light  of  God  flickers  —  and  flickers  inse- 
curely. Where  we  had  thought  a  God,  somehow 
akin  to  ourselves,  ruled  in  the  universe,  it  may 
be  there  is  nothing  but  black  emptiness  and  a 
coldness  worse  than  cruelty." 

Mr.  Dad  was  about  to  interrupt,  and  re- 
strained himself  by  a  great  effort. 

*^  It  is  a  commonplace  of  pietistic  works  that 
natural  things  are  perfect  things,  and  that  the 
whole  world  of  life,  if  it  were  not  for  the  sinful- 
ness of  man,  would  be  perfect.  Paley,  you  will 
remember.  Sir  Eliphaz,  in  his  *  Evidences  of 
Christianity,'  from  which  we  have  both  suf- 
fered, declares  that  this  earth  is  manifestly 
made  for  the  happiness  of  the  sentient  beings 
living  thereon.  But  I  ask  you  to  consider  for 
a  little  and  dispassionately,  whether  life  through 
all  its  stages,  up  to  and  including  man,  is  not 
rather  a  scheme  of  uneasiness,  imperfect  satis- 
faction, and  positive  miseries.   .    .    ." 


§8 

*^  Aren't  we  getting  a  bit  out  of  our  depth  in 
all  this?  ''  Mr.  Dad  burst  out.  ''  Put  it  at  that 
—  out  of  our  depth.  .  .  .  What  does  this  sort 
of  carping  and  questioning  amount  to,  Mr. 
Huss?  Does  it  do  us  any  good?  Does  it  help 
us  in  the  slightest  degree?  Why  should  we  go 
into  all  this!  Why  can't  we  be  humble  and 
leave  these  deep  questions  to  those  who  make  a 
specialty  of  dealing  with  them?  We  don't  know 
the  ropes.  We  can't.  Here  are  you  and  Mr. 
Farr,  for  instance,  both  of  you  whole-time 
schoolmasters  so  to  speak;  here's  Sir  Eliphaz 
toiling  night  and  day  to  make  simple  cheap  suit- 
able homes  for  the  masses,  who  probably  won't 
say  thank  you  to  him  when  they  see  them;  here's 
me  an  overworked  engineer  and  understaffed 
most  cruelly,  not  to  speak  of  the  most  unfair 
and  impossible  labour  demands,  so  that  you 
never  know  where  you  are  and  what  they  won't 
ask  you  next.  And  in  the  midst  of  it  all  we  are 
to  start  an  argey-bargey  about  the  goodness  of 
God! 

79 


80  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

<<  We're  busy  men,  Mr.  Huss.  What  do  we 
know  of  the  world  being  a  scheme  of  imperfect 
satisfaction  and  what  all?  Where  does  it  come 
in?  What's  its  practical  value?  Words  it  is, 
all  words,  and  getting  away  from  the  plain  and 
definite  question  we  came  to  talk  over  and  settle 
and  have  done  with.  Such  talk,  I  will  confess, 
makes  me  uncomfortable.  Give  me  the  Bible 
and  the  simple  religion  I  learnt  at  my  mother 's 
knee.  That's  good  enough  for  me.  Can't  we 
just  have  faith  and  leave  all  these  questions 
alone?  What  are  men  in  reality?  After  all 
their  arguments.  Worms.  Just  worms.  Well 
then,  let's  have  the  decency  to  behave  as  such 
and  stick  to  business,  and  do  our  best  in  that 
state  of  life  unto  which  it  has  pleased  God  to 
call  us.     That's  what  I  say,"  said  Mr.  Dad. 

He  jerked  his  head  back,  coughed  shortly, 
adjusted  his  tie,  and  nodded  to  Mr.  Farr  in  a 
resolute  manner. 

**  A  simple,  straightforward,  commercial  and 
technical  education,"  he  added  by  way  of  an 
explanatory  colophon.  ^^  That's  what  we're 
after." 


§9 

Mr.  Huss  stared  absently  at  Mr.  Dad  for 

some  moments,  and  then  resumed: 

**  Let  US  look  squarely  at  this  world  about  us. 
What  is  the  true  lot  of  life  ?  Is  there  the  slight- 
est justification  for  assuming  that  our  con- 
ceptions of  right  and  happiness  are  reflected 
anywhere  in  the  outward  universe?  Is  there, 
for  instance,  much  animal  happiness!  Do 
health  and  well-being  constitute  the  normal 
state  of  animals ! ' ' 

He  paused.  Mr.  Dad  got  up,  and  stood  look- 
ing out  of  the  window  with  his  back  to  Mr.  Huss. 
**  Pulling  nature  to  pieces,"  he  said  over  his 
shoulder.  He  turned  and  urged  further,  with 
a  snarl  of  bitterness  in  his  voice:  '^  Suppose 
things  are  so,  what  is  the  good  of  our  calling 
attention  to  it  I    Where's  the  benefit?  '' 

But  the  attitude  of  Sir  Eliphaz  conveyed  a 
readiness  to  listen. 

**  Before  I  became  too  ill  to  go  out  here,'' 
said  Mr.  Huss,  ^^  I  went  for  a  walk  in  the  coun- 
try behind  this  place.  I  was  weary  before  I 
G  81 


82  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

started,  but/I  was  impelled  to  go  by  that  almost 
irresistible  desire  that  will  seize  upon  one  at 
times  to  get  out  of  one's  immediate  surround- 
ings, fl  wanted  to  escape  from  this  wretched 
room,'  and  I  wanted  to  be  alone,  secure  from 
interruptions,  and  free  to  think  in  peace.  There 
was  a  treacherous  promise  in  the  day  outside, 
much  sunshine  and  a  breeze.  I  had  heard  of 
woods  a  mile  or  so  inland,  and  that  conjured  up 
a  vision  of  cool  green  shade  and  kindly  streams 
beneath  the  trees  and  of  the  fellowship  of  shy 
and  gentle  creatures.  So  I  went  out  into  the 
heat  and  into  the  dried  and  salted  east  wind, 
through  glare  and  ink}^  shadows,  across  many 
more  fields  than  I  had  expected,  until  I  came  to 
some  woods  and  then  to  a  neglected  park,  and 
there  for  a  time  I  sat  down  to  rest.   .    .    . 

*^  But  I  could  get  no  rest.  The  turf  was 
unclean  through  the  presence  of  many  sheep, 
and  in  it  there  was  a  number  of  close-growing 
but  very  sharply  barbed  thistles;  and  after  a 
little  time  I  realized  that  harvesters,  those 
minute  red  beasts  that  creep  upon  one  in  the 
chalk  lands  and  burrow  into  the  skin  and  pro- 
duce an  almost  intolerable  itching,  abounded. 
I  got  up  again  and  went  on,  hoping  in  vain  to 
find  some  fence  or  gate  on  which  I  might  rest 
more  comfortably.     There  were  many  flies  and 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  83 

gnats,  many  more  than  there  are  here  and  of 
different  sorts,  and  they  persecuted  me  more 
and  more.  They  surrounded  me  in  a  humming 
cloud,  and  I  had  to  wave  my  walking-stick  about 
my  head  all  the  time  to  keep  them  off  me.  I 
felt  too  exhausted  to  walk  back,  but  there  was, 
I  knew,  a  village  a  mile  or  so  ahead  where  I 
hoped  to  find  some  conveyance  in  which  I  might 
return  by  road.   ... 

'^  And  as  I  struggled  along  in  this  fashion  I 
came  upon  first  one  thing  and  then  another,  so 
apt  to  my  mood  that  they  might  have  been  put 
there  by  some  adversary.  First  it  was  a  very 
young  rabbit  indeed,  it  was  scarcely  as  long  as 
my  hand,  which  some  cruel  thing  had  dragged 
from  its  burrow.  The  back  of  its  head  had  been 
bitten  open  and  was  torn  and  bloody,  and  the 
flies  rose  from  its  oozing  wounds  to  my  face 
like  a  cloud  of  witnesses.  Then  as  I  went  on, 
trying  to  distract  my  mind  from  the  memory  of 
this  pitiful  dead  thing  by  looking  about  me  for 
something  more  agreeable,  I  discovered  a  row 
of  little  brown  objects  in  a  hawthorn  bush,  and 
going  closer  found  they  were  some  half-dozen 
victims  of  a  butcherbird  —  beetles,  fledgelings, 
and  a  mouse  or  so  —  spiked  on  the  thorns. 
They  were  all  twisted  into  painful  attitudes,  as 
if  each  had  suffered  horribly  and  challenged  me 


84  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

by  the  last  gesture  of  its  limbs  to  judge  between 
it  and  its  creator.  .  .  .  And  a  little  further 
on  a  gaunt,  villainous-looking  cat  with  rusty 
black  fur  that  had  bare  patches  suddenly  ran 
upon  me  out  of  a  side  path;  it  had  something 
in  its  mouth  which  it  abandoned  at  the  sight  of 
me  and  left  writhing  at  my  feet,  a  pretty  crested 
bird,  ver}^  mangled,  that  flapped  in  flat  circles 
upon  the  turf,  unable  to  rise.  A  fit  of  weak  and 
reasonless  rage  came  upon  me  at  this,  and  see- 
ing the  cat  halt  some  yards  away  and  turn  to 
regard  me  and  move  as  if  to  recover  its  victim, 
I  rushed  at  it  and  pursued  it,  shouting.  Then 
it  occurred  to  me  that  it  would  be  kinder  if, 
instead  of  a  futile  pursuit  of  the  wretched  cat, 
I  went  back  and  put  an  end  to  the  bird 's  suffer- 
ings. For  a  time  I  could  not  find  it,  and  I 
searched  for  it  in  the  bushes  in  a  fever  to  get  it 
killed,  groaning  and  cursing  as  I  did  so.  When 
I  found  it,  it  fought  at  me  with  its  poor  bleeding 
wings  and  snapped  its  beak  at  me,  and  made  me 
feel  less  like  a  deliverer  than  a  murderer.  I 
hit  it  with  my  stick,  and  as  it  still  moved  I 
stamped  it  to  death  with  my  feet.  I  fled  from  its 
body  in  an  agony.  *  And  this,'  I  cried,  *  this 
hell  revealed,  is  God's  creation!  '  " 

*^  Tcha!  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Dad. 

**  Suddenly  it  seemed  to  me  that  scales  had 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  85 

fallen  from  my  eyes  and  that  I  saw  the  whole 
world  plain.  It  was  as  if  the  universe  had  put 
aside  a  mask  it  had  hitherto  worn,  and  shown 
me  its  face,  and  it  was  a  face  of  boundless  evil. 
...  It  was  as  if  a  power  of  darkness  sat 
over  me  and  watched  me  with  a  mocking  gaze, 
and  for  the  rest  of  that  day  I  could  think  of 
nothing  but  the  feeble  miseries  of  living  things. 
I  was  tortured,  and  all  life  was  tortured  with 
me.  I  failed  to  find  the  village  I  sought;  I 
strayed  far,  I  got  back  here  at  last  long  after 
dark,  stopping  sometimes  by  the  wayside  to  be 
sick,  sometimes  kneeling  or  lying  down  for  a 
time  to  rest,  shivering  and  burning  with  an  in- 
creasing fever. 

**  I  had,  as  you  know,  been  the  first  to  find 
poor  Williamson  lying  helpless  among  the  acids ; 
that  ghastly  figure  and  the  burnt  bodies  of  the 
two  boys  who  died  in  School  House  haunt  my 
mind  constantly;  but  what  was  most  in  my 
thoughts  on  that  day  when  the  world  of  nature 
showed  its  teeth  to  me  was  the  wretchedness  of 
animal  life.  I  do  not  know  why  that  should 
have  seemed  more  pitiful  to  me,  and  more  fun- 
damental, but  it  did.  Human  suffering,  per- 
haps, is  complicated  by  moral  issues ;  man  can 
look  before  and  after  and  find  remote  justifica- 
tions and  stern  consolations  outside  his  present 


86  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

experiences ;  but  the  poor  birds  and  beasts,  the> 
have  only  their  present  experiences  and  their 
individual  lives  cut  off  and  shut  in.  How  can 
there  be  righteousness  in  any  scheme  that  afflicts 
them?  I  thought  of  one  creature  after  another, 
and  I  could  imagine  none  that  had  more  than 
an  occasional  gleam  of  false  and  futile  satisfac- 
tion between  suffering  and  suffering.  And  to- 
day^ gentlemen,  as  I  sit  here  with  you,  the  same 
dark  stream  of  conviction  pours  through  my 
mind.  I  feel  that  life  is  a  weak  and  inconse- 
quent stirring  amidst  the  dust  of  space  and 
time,  incapable  of  overcoming  even  its  internal 
dissensions,  doomed  to  phases  of  delusion,  to 
irrational  and  undeserved  punishments,  to  vain 
complainings  and  at  last  to  extinction. 

^  ^  Is  there  so  much  as  one  healthy  living  being 
in  the  world  I  I  question  it.  As  I  wandered 
that  day,  I  noted  the  trees  as  I  had  never  noted 
them  before.  There  was  not  one  that  did  not 
show  a  stricken  or  rotten  branch,  or  that  was 
not  studded  with  the  stumps  of  lost  branches 
decaying  backwards  towards  the  main  stem; 
from  every  fork  came  dark  stains  of  corruption, 
the  bark  was  twisted  and  contorted  and  fungoid 
protrusions  proclaimed  the  hidden  mycelium  of 
disease.  The  leaves  were  spotted  with  warts  and 
blemishes,  and  gnawed  and  bitten  by  a  myriad 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  87 

enemies.  I  noted  too  that  the  turf  under  my  feet 
was  worn  and  scorched  and  weary;  gossamer 
threads  and  spiders  of  a  hundred  sorts  trapped 
the  multitudinous  insects  in  the  wilted  autumnal 
undergrowth ;  the  hedges  were  a  slow  conflict  of 
thrusting  and  strangulating  plants  in  which 
every  individual  was  more  or  less  crippled  or 
stunted.  Most  of  these  plants  were  armed  like 
assassins;  they  had  great  thorns  or  stinging 
hairs;  some  ripened  poisonous  berries.  And 
this  was  the  reality  of  life;  this  was  no  excep- 
tional mood  of  things,  but  a  revelation  of  things 
established.  I  had  been  blind  and  now  I  saw. 
Even  as  these  woods  and  thickets  were,  so  was 
all  the  world.   .    .    . 

'*  I  had  been  reading  in  a  book  I  had  chanced 
to  pick  up  in  this  lodging,  about  the  jungles  of 
India,  which  many  people  think  of  as  a  vast 
wealth  of  splendid  and  luxuriant  vegetation. 
For  the  greater  part  of  the  year  they  are  hot 
and  thorny  wastes  of  brown,  dead  and  moulder- 
ing matter.  Comes  the  steaming  downpour  of 
the  rains ;  and  then  for  a  little  while  there  is  a 
tangled  rush  of  fighting  greenery,  jostling, 
choking,  torn  and  devoured  by  a  multitude  of 
beasts  and  by  a  horrible  variety  of  insects  that 
the  hot  moisture  has  called  to  activity.  Then 
under  the  dry  breath  of  the  destroyer  the  ex- 


88  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

uberance  stales  and  withers,  everything  ripens 
and  falls,  and  the  jungle  relapses  again  into 
sullen  heat  and  gloomy  fermentation.  And  in 
truth  everywhere  the  growth  season  is  a  wild 
scramble  into  existence,  the  rest  of  the  year  a 
complicated  massacre.  Even  in  our  British  cli- 
mate is  it  not  plain  to  you  how  the  summer 
outlasts  the  lavish  promise  of  the  spring?  In 
our  spring  there  is  no  doubt  an  air  of  hope,  of 
budding  and  blossoming;  there  is  the  nesting 
and  singing  of  birds,  a  certain  cleanness  of  the 
air,  an  emergence  of  primary  and  comparatively 
innocent  things;  but  hard  upon  that  freshness 
follow  the  pests  and  parasites,  the  creatures 
that  corrupt  and  sting,  the  minions  of  waste  and 
pain  and  lassitude  and  fever.   .    .    . 

**  You  may  say  that  I  am  dwelling  too  much 
upon  the  defects  in  the  lives  of  plants  which  do 
not  feel,  and  of  insects  and  small  creatures 
which  may  feel  in  a  different  manner  from  our- 
selves ;  but  indeed  their  decay  and  imperfection 
make  up  the  common  texture  of  life.  Even  the 
things  that  live  are  only  half  alive.  You  may 
argue  that  at  least  the  rarer,  larger  beasts 
bring  with  them  a  certain  delight  and  dignity 
into  the  world.  But  consider  the  lives  of  the 
herbivora;  they  are  all  hunted  creatures;  fear 
is  their  habit  of  mind;  even  the  great  Indian 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  89 

buffalo  is  given  to  panic  flights.  They  are  in- 
cessantly worried  by  swarms  of  insects.  When 
they  are  not  apathetic  they  appear  to  be  angry, 
exasperated  with  life ;  their  seasonal  outbreaks 
of  sex  are  evidently  a  violent  torment  to  them, 
an  occasion  for  fierce  bellowings,  mutual  perse- 
cution and  desperate  combats.  Such  beasts  as 
the  rhinoceros  or  the  buffalo  are  habitually  in  a 
rage;  they  will  run  amuck  for  no  conceivable 
reason,  and  so  too  will  many  elephants,  betray- 
ing a  sort  of  organic  spite  against  all  other  liv- 
ing things.   .    .    . 

*  *  And  if  we  turn  to  the  great  carnivores,  who 
should  surely  be  the  lords  of  the  jungle  world, 
their  lot  seems  to  be  not  one  whit  more  happy. 
The  tiger  leads  a  life  of  fear;  a  dirty  scrap  of 
rag  will  turn  him  from  his  path. ,  Much  of  his 
waking  life  is  prowling  hunger;  when  he  kills 
he  eats  ravenously,  he  eats  to  the  pitch  of  dis- 
comfort; he  lies  up  afterwards  in  reeds  or 
bushes,  savage,  disinclined  to  move.  The 
hunter  must  beat  him  out,  and  he  comes  out 
sluggishly  and  reluctantly  to  die.  His  paws, 
too,  are  strangely  tender;  a  few  miles  of  rock 
will  make  them  bleed,  they  gather  thorns.  .  .  . 
His  mouth  is  so  foul  that  his  bite  is  a  poisoned 
bite.   .    .    . 

**  All  that  day  I  struggled  against  this  per- 


90  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

suasion  that  the  utmost  happiness  of  any  animal 
is  at  best  like  a  transitory  smile  on  a  grim  and 
inhuman  countenance.  I  tried  to  recall  some 
humorous  and  contented-looking  creatures.  .  .  . 

^^  That  only  recalled  a  fresh  horror.   .    .    . 

**  You  will  have  seen  jDictures  and  photo- 
graphs of  penguins.  They  will  have  conveyed 
to  you  the  sort  of  effect  I  tried  to  recover. 
They  express  a  quaint  and  jolly  gravity,  an 
aldermanic  contentment.  But  to  me  now  the 
mere  thought  of  a  penguin  raises  a  vision  of 
distress.  I  will  tell  you.  .  .  .  One  of  my  old 
boys  came  to  me  a  year  or  so  ago  on  his  return 
from  a  South  Polar  expedition;  he  told  me  the 
true  story  of  these  birds.  Their  lives,  he  said 
—  he  was  speaking  more  particularly  of  the 
king  penguin  —  are  tormented  by  a  monstrously 
exaggerated  maternal  instinct,  an  instinct 
shared  by  both  sexes,  which  is  a  necessary  con- 
dition of  survival  in  the  crowded  rookeries  of 
that  frozen  environment.  And  that  instinct 
makes  life  one  long  torment  for  them.  There 
is  always  a  great  smashing  of  eggs  there 
through  various  causes;  there  is  an  excessive 
mortality  among  the  chicks;  they  slip  down 
crevasses,  they  freeze  to  death  and  so  forth, 
three-quarters  of  each  year's  brood  perish,  and 
without  this  extravagant  passion  the  species 


THE  THREE   VISITORS  91 

would  become  extinct.  So  that  every  bird  is 
afflicted  with  a  desire  and  anxiety  to  brood  upon 
and  protect  a  chick.  But  each  couple  produces 
no  more  than  one  egg  a  year;  eggs  get  broken, 
they  roll  away  into  the  water,  there  is  always  a 
shortage,  and  every  penguin  that  has  an  egg 
has  to  guard  it  jealously,  and  each  one  that  has 
not  an  egg  is  impelled  to  steal  or  capture  one. 
Some  in  their  distress  will  mother  pebbles  or 
scraps  of  ice,  some  fortunate  in  possession  will 
sit  for  days  without  leaving  the  nest  in  spite  of 
the  gnamngs  of  the  intense  Antarctic  hunger. 
To  leave  a  nest  for  a  moment  is  to  tempt  a  rob- 
ber, and  the  intensity  of  the  emotions  aroused 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  they  will  fight  to  the 
death  over  a  stolen  egg.  You  see  that  these 
pictures  of  rookeries  of  apparently  comical 
birds  are  really  pictures  of  poor  dim-minded 
creatures  worried  and  strained  to  the  very  limit 
of  their  powers.  That  is  what  their  lives  have 
always  been.   ... 

^  ^  But  the  king  penguin  draws  near  the  end  of 
its  history.  Let  me  tell  you  how  its  history  is 
closing.  Let  me  tell  you  of  what  is  happening 
in  the  peaceful  Southern  Seas  —  now.  This  old 
boy  of  mine  was  in  great  distress  because  of  a 
vile  traffic  that  has  arisen.  .  .  .  Unless  it  is 
stopped,  it  will  destroy  these  rookeries  alto- 


92  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

gether.  These  birds  are  being  murdered  whole- 
sale for  their  oil.  Parties  of  men  land  and  club 
them  upon  their  nests,  from  which  the  poor, 
silly  things  refuse  to  stir.  The  dead  and 
stunned,  the  living  and  the  dead  together,  are 
dragged  away  and  thrust  into  iron  crates  to  be 
boiled  down  for  their  oil.  The  broken  living 
with  the  dead.  .  .  .  Each  bird  yields  about  a 
farthing's  profit,  but  it  pays  to  kill  them  at 
that,  and  so  the  thing  is  done.  The  people  who 
run  these  operations,  you  see,  have  had  a  sound 
commercial  training.  They  believe  that  when 
God  gives  us  power  He  means  us  to  use  it,  and 
that  what  is  profitable  is  just." 

^'  Well,  really,''  protested  Mr.  Dad. 
*^Eeally!" 

Mr.  Farr  also  betrayed  a  disposition  to  speak. 
He  cleared  his  thoat,  his  uneasy  hands  worried 
the  edge  of  the  table,  his  face  shone.  ^^  Sir 
Eliphaz,"  he  said.   .    .    . 

*'  Let  me  finish,"  said  Mr.  Huss,  **  for  I  have 
still  to  remind  you  of  the  most  stubborn  facts  of 
all  in  such  an  argument  as  this.  Have  you  ever 
thought  of  the  significance  of  such  creatures  as 
the  entozoa,  and  the  vast  multitudes  of  other 
sorts  of  specialized  parasites  whose  very  exist- 
ence is  cruelty?  There  are  thousands  of  orders 
and   genera  of   insects,   Crustacea,   arachnids. 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  93 

worms,  and  lowlier  things,  which  are  adapted  in 
the  most  complicated  way  to  prey  npon  the  liv- 
ing and  suffering  tissues  of  their  fellow  crea- 
tures, and  which  can  live  in  no  other  way.  Have 
you  ever  thought  what  that  means?  If  fore- 
thought framed  these  horrors  what  sort  of 
benevolence  was  there  in  that  forethought?  I 
will  not  distress  you  by  describing  the  life  cycles 
of  any  of  these  creatures  too  exactly.  You  must 
know  of  many  of  them.  I  will  not  dwell  upon 
those  wasps,  for  example,  which  lay  their  eggs 
in  the  living  bodies  of  victims  which  the  young 
will  gnaw  to  death  slowly  day  by  day  as  they  de- 
velop, nor  mil  I  discuss  this  unmeaning  growth 
of  cells  which  has  made  my  body  its  soil.  .  .  . 
Nor  any  one  of  our  thousand  infectious  fevers 
that  fall  upon  us  —  without  reason,  without 
justice.   .    .    . 

^*  Man  is  of  all  creatures  the  least  subjected 
to  internal  parasites.  In  the  brief  space  of  a 
few  hundred  thousand  years  he  has  changed  his 
food,  his  habitat  and  every  attitude  and  habit 
of  his  life,  and  comparatively  few  species,  thirty 
or  forty  at  most,  I  am  told,  have  been  able  to 
follow  his  changes  and  specialize  themselves 
to  him  under  these  fresh  conditions;  yet  even 
man  can  entertain  some  fearful  guests.  Every 
time  you  drink  open  water  near  a  sheep  pas- 


94  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

tui'G  YOU  may  drink  the  larval  liver  fluke,  wliicli 
will  make  your  liver  a  little  to\\Tiship  of  vile 
creatures  until  they  eat  it  up,  until  they  swarm 
from  its  oozing  ruins  into  your  body  cavity  and 
destroy  you.  In  Europe  this  is  a  rare  fate  for 
a  man,  but  in  China  there  are  mde  regions 
where  the  fluke  abounds  and  rots  the  life  out  of 
thousands  of  people.  .  .  .  The  fluke  is  but 
one  sample  of  such  feats  of  the  Creator.  An 
unwashed  leaf  of  lettuce  may  be  the  means  of 
planting  a  parasitic  cyst  in  your  brain  to  de- 
throne your  reason ;  a  feast  of  underdone  pork 
may  transfer  to  you  from  the  swine  the  creeping 
death  torture  of  trichinosis.  .  .  .  But  all  that 
men  suffer  in  these  matters  is  nothing  to  the 
suffering  of  the  beasts.  The  torments  of  the 
beasts  are  finished  and  complete.  My  biological 
master  tells  me  that  he  rarely  opens  a  cod  or 
dogfish  without  finding  bunches  of  some  sort 
of  worm  or  such  like  pallid  lodger  in  possession. 
He  has  rows  of  little  tubes  with  the  things  he 
has  found  in  the  bodies  of  rabbits.   .    .    . 

^ '  But  I  will  not  disgust  you  further.   .    .    . 

*^  Is  this  a  world  made  for  the  happiness  of 
sentient  things? 

**  I  ask  yoUy  how  is  it  possible  for  man  to  be 
other  than  a  rebel  in  the  face  of  such  facts? 
How  can  he  trust  the  Maker  who  has  designed 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  95 

and  elaborated  and  finished  these  parasites  in 
their  endless  multitude  and  variety?  For  these 
things  are  not  in  the  nature  of  sudden  creations 
and  special  judgments;  they  have  been  pro- 
duced fearfully  and  wonderfully  by  a  process  of 
evolution  as  slow  and  deliberate  as  our  own. 
How  can  Man  trust  such  a  Maker  to  treat  him 
fairly!  Why  should  we  shut  our  eyes  to  things 
that  stare  us  in  the  face?  Either  the  world  of 
life  is  the  creation  of  a  being  inspired  by  a 
malignancy  at  once  filthy,  petty  and  enormous, 
or  it  displays  a  carelessness,  an  indifference,  a 
disregard  for  justice.  .  .  . ' ' 
The  voice  of  Mr.  Huss  faded  out. 


§  10 

For  some  time  Mr.  Farr  had  been  manifest- 
ing signs  of  impatience.  The  pause  gave  him 
his  opportunity.  He  spoke  with  a  sort  of  re- 
strained volubility. 

^^  Sir  Eliphaz,  Mr.  Dad,  after  what  has  passed 
in  relation  to  myself,  I  would  have  preferred  to 
have  said  nothing  in  this  discussion.  Nothing. 
So  far  as  I  myself  am  concerned,  I  will  still  say 
nothing.  But  upon  some  issues  it  is  impossible 
to  keep  silence.  Mr.  Huss  has  said  some  ter- 
rible things,  things  that  must  surely  never  be 
said  at  Woldingstanton.   .    .    . 

**  Think  of  what  such  teaching  as  this  may 
mean  among  young  and  susceptible  boys! 
Think  of  such  stuff  in  the  school  pulpit! 
Chary  as  I  am  of  all  wrangling,  and  I  would  not 
set  myself  up  for  a  moment  to  wrangle  against 
Mr.  Huss,  yet  I  feel  that  this  cavilling  against 
God's  universe,  this  multitude  of  evil  words, 
must  be  answered.  It  is  imperative  to  answer 
it,  plainly  and  sternly.  It  is  our  duty  to  God, 
who  has  made  us  what  we  are.  .    .    . 

96 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  97 

*'  Mr.  Huss,  in  your  present  diseased  state 
you  seem  incapable  of  realizing  the  enormous 
egotism  of  all  this  depreciation  of  God's  mar- 
vels. But  indeed  you  have  suffered  from  that 
sort  of  incapacity  always.  It  is  no  new  thing. 
Have  I  not  chafed  under  your  arrogant  assur- 
ance for  twelve  long  years  1  Your  right,  now  as 
ever,  is  the  only  right;  your  doctrine  alone  is 
pure.  Would  that  God  could  speak  and  open  his 
lips  against  you !  How  his  voice  would  shatter 
you  and  us  and  everything  about  us !  How  you 
would  shrivel  amidst  your  blasphemies ! 

'*  Excuse  me,  gentlemen,  if  I  am  too  forcible,'* 
said  Mr.  Farr,  moistening  his  white  lips,  but 
Mr.  Dad  nodded  fierce  approval. 

Thus  encouraged,  Mr.  Farr  proceeded. 
'*  When  first  I  came  into  this  room,  Mr.  Huss, 
I  was  full  of  pity  for  your  affliction  —  I  think  we 
all  were  —  we  were  pitiful ;  but  now  it  is  clear 
to  me  that  God  exacts  from  you  less  than  your 
iniquity  deserves.  Surely  the  supreme  sin  is 
pride.  You  criticize  and  belittle  God 's  universe, 
but  what  sort  of  a  universe  would  you  give  us, 
Mr.  Huss,  if  you  were  the  Creator?  Pardon 
me  if  I  startle  you,  gentlemen,  but  that  is  a  fair 
question  to  ask.  For  it  is  clear  to  me  now,  Mr. 
Huss,  that  no  less  than  that  mil  satisfy  you. 
Woldingstanton,  for  all  the  wonders  you  have 


98  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

wrought  there,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  never 
before  and  never  again  can  there  be  such  a  head, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  you  have  lit  such  a 
candle  there  as  may  one  day  set  the  world 
ablaze,  is  clearly  too  small  a  field  for  you.  Head- 
master of  the  universe  is  your  position.  Then, 
and  then  alone,  could  you  display  your  gifts  to 
the  full.  Then  cats  would  cease  to  eat  birds, 
and  trees  grow  on  in  perfect  symmetry  until 
they  cumbered  the  sky.  I  can  dimly  imagine 
the  sort  of  world  that  it  would  be ;  the  very  fleas 
reformed  and  trained  under  your  hand,  would 
be  flushed  with  health  and  happiness  and  doing 
the  work  of  boy  scouts;  every  blade  of  grass 
would  be  at  least  six  feet  long.  As  for  the  liver 
fluke  —  but  I  cannot  solve  the  problem  of  the 
liver  fluke.  I  suppose  you  will  provide  eutha- 
nasia for  all  the  parasites.   .    .    .'' 

Abruptly  Mr.  Farr  passed  from  this  vein  of 
terrible  humour  to  an  earnest  and  pleading 
manner.  ^'  Mr.  Huss,  with  mortal  danger  so 
close  to  you,  I  entreat  you  to  reconsider  all  this 
wild  and  wicked  talk:  of  yours.  You  take  a  few 
superficial  aspects  of  the  world  and  frame  a 
judgment  on  them ;  you  try  with  the  poor  foot- 
rule  of  your  mind  to  measure  the  plans  of  God, 
plans  which  are  longer  than  the  earth,  wider 
than  the  sea.     I  ask  you,  how  can  such  insolence 


THE  THREE  VISITORS  99 

help  you  in  this  supreme  emergency?  There 
can  be  little  time  left,  .    .    . ' ' 

Providence  was  manifestly  resolved  to  give 
Mr.  Farr  the  maximum  of  dramatic  effect. 
*^  But  what  is  this?  ''  said  Mr.  Farr.  He  stood 
up  and  looked  out  of  the  window. 

Somebody  had  rung  the  bell,  and  now,  with 
an  effect  of  impatience,  was  rapping  at  the 
knocker  of  Sea  View. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 

DO  WE  TRULY  DIE? 

§1 

Mrs.  Croomb  was  heard  in  the  passage,  some- 
one was  admitted,  there  were  voices,  and 
the  handle  of  the  parlour  door  was  turned. 
*^  'Asn't  E  come,  then?  "  they  heard  the  voice 
of  Mrs.  Croome  through  the  opening.  Dr. 
Elihu  Barrack  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

He  was  a  round-headed  young  man  with  a 
clean-shaven  face,  a  mouth  that  was  deter- 
minedly determined  and  slightly  oblique,  a  short 
nose,  and  a  general  expression  of  resolution ;  the 
fact  that  he  had  an  artificial  leg  was  scarcely 
perceptible  in  his  bearing.  He  considered  the 
four  men  before  him  for  a  moment,  and  then 
addressed  himself  to  Mr.  Huss  in  a  tone  of 
brisk  authority.  **  You  ought  to  be  in  bed,*' 
he  said. 

^^  I  had  this  rather  important  discussion," 

100 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?     '  '^  '  '  lOl 

said  Mr.  Huss,  with  a  gesture  portending  intro- 
ductions. 

*  ^  But  sitting  up  will  fatigue  you, ' '  the  doctor 
insisted,  sticking  to  his  patient. 

^'  It  won't  distress  me  so  much  as  leaving 
these  things  unsaid  would  have  done.'' 

*^  Opinions  may  differ  upon  that,"  said  Mr. 
Farr  darkly. 

' '  We  are  still  far  from  any  settlement  of  our 
difficulties,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz  to  the  universe. 

*  *  I  have  indicated  my  view  at  any  rate, ' '  said 
Mr.  Huss.  **  I  suppose  now  Sir  Alpheus  is 
here  — " 

^'  He  isn't  here,"  said  Dr.  Barrack  neatly. 
*^  He  telegraphs  to  say  that  he  is  held  up,  and 
will  come  by  the  next  train.  So  you  get  a  re- 
prieve, Mr.  Huss." 

**  In  that  case  I  shall  go  on  talking." 

**  You  had  better  go  to  bed." 

**  No.  I  couldn't  lie  quiet."  And  Mr.  Huss 
proceeded  to  name  his  guests  to  Dr.  Barrack, 
who  nodded  shortly  to  each  of  them  in  turn,  and 
said :  ^  ^  Pleased-t-meet  you. ' '  His  face  betrayed 
no  excess  of  pleasure.  His  eye  was  hard.  He 
remained  standing,  as  if  waiting  for  them  to 
display  symptoms. 

*  *  Our  discussion  has  wandered  far, ' '  said  Sir 
Eliphaz.     "'  Our  original  business  here  was  to 


102"  ' '  "^ '' ' '  TflE  *  Undying  fire 

determine  the  future  development  of  Wolding- 
stanton  School,  which  we  think  should  be  made 
more  practical  and  technical  than  hitherto,  and 
less  concerned  with  history  and  philosophy  than 
it  has  been  under  Mr.  Huss.  (Won't  you  sit 
down,  Doctor?)  '^ 

The  doctor  sat  down,  still  watching  Sir  Eli- 
phaz  with  hard  intelligence. 

**  Well,  we  have  drifted  from  that,"  Sir  Eli- 
phaz  continued. 

**  Not  so  far  as  you  may  think,'*  said  Mr. 
Huss. 

*  ^  At  any  rate  Mr.  Huss  has  been  regaling  us 
with  a  discourse  upon  the  miseries  of  life,  how 
we  are  all  eaten  up  by  parasites  and  utterly 
wretched,  and  how  everything  is  wretched  and 
this  an  accursed  world  ruled  either  by  a  cruel 
God  or  a  God  so  careless  as  to  be  practically  no 
God  at  all.'' 

**  Nice  stuff  for  nineteen  eighteen  A.D./^  said 
Mr.  Dad,  putting  much  meaning  into  the  *^a.d." 

**  Since  I  left  Woldingstanton  and  came 
here,"  said  Mr.  Huss,  ^^  I  have  done  little  else 
but  think.  I  have  not  slept  during  the  night, 
I  have  had  nothing  to  occupy  me  during  the 
day,  and  I  have  been  thinking  about  fundamen- 
tal things.  I  have  been  forced  to  revise  my 
faith,  and  to  look  more  closely  than  I  have 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  103 

ever  done  before  into  the  meaning  of  my 
beliefs  and  into  my  springs  of  action.  I  have 
been  wrenched  away  from  tliat  habitual  con- 
fidence in  the  order  of  things  which  seemed  the 
more  natural  state  for  a  mind  to  be  in.  But 
that  has  only  widened  a  difference  that  already 
existed  between  me  and  these  three  gentlemen, 
and  that  was  showing  very  plainly  in  the  days 
when  success  still  justified  my  grip  upon  Wol- 
dingstanton.  Suddenly,  swiftly,  I  have  had 
misfortune  following  upon  misfortune  —  with- 
out cause  or  justification.  I  am  thro^vn  now 
into  the  darkest  doubt  and  dismay ;  the  universe 
seems  harsh  and  black  to  me ;  whereas  formerly 
I  believed  that  at  the  core  of  it  and  universally 
pervading  it  was  the  "Will  of  a  God  of  Light. 
...  I  have  always  denied,  even  when  my 
faith  was  undimmed,  that  the  God  of  Righteous- 
ness ruled  this  world  in  detail  and  entirely,  giv- 
ing us  day  by  day  our  daily  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments. These  gentlemen  on  the  contrary  do 
believe  that.  They  say  that  God  does  rule  the 
world  traceably  and  directly,  and  that  success 
is  the  measure  of  his  approval  and  pain  and 
suffering  the  fulfilment  of  unrighteousness. 
And  as  for  what  has  this  to  do  with  education  — 
it  has  all  to  do  with  education.  You  can  settle 
no  practical  questions  until  you  have  settled 


\ 


104  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

such  disputes  as  this.  Before  you  can  prepare 
boys  to  play  their  part  in  the  world  you  must 
ask  what  is  this  world  for  which  you  prepare 
them;  is  it  a  tragedy  or  comedy?  What  is  the 
nature  of  this  drama  in  which  they  are  to 
play?  '' 

Dr.  Barrack  indicated  that  this  statement  was 
noted  and  approved. 

**  For  clearly/'  said  Mr.  Huss,  ^'  if  success 
is  the  justification  of  life  you  must  train  for 
success.  There  is  no  need  for  men  to  under- 
stand life,  then,  so  long  as  they  do  their  job  in 
it.  That  is  the  opinion  of  these  governors  of 
mine.  It  has  been  the  opinion  of  most  men  of 
the  world  —  always.  Obey  the  Thing  that  Is! 
that  is  the  lesson  they  would  have  taught  to  my 
boys.  Acquiesce.  Life  for  them  is  not  an  ad- 
venture, not  a  struggle,  but  simply  obedience 
and  the  enjoyment  of  rewards.  .  .  .  That, 
Dr.  Barrack,  is  what  such  a  technical  education 
as  they  want  set  up  at  Woldingstanton  really 
means.   .    .    . 

*^  But  I  have  believed  always  and  taught 
always  that  what  God  demands  from  man  is  his 
utmost  effort  to  co-operate  and  understand.  I 
have  taught  the  imagination,  first  and  most;  I 
have  made  knowledge,  knowledge  of  what  man 
is  and  what  man's  world  is  and  what  man  may 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  105 

be,  which  is  the  adventure  of  manldnd,  the  sub- 
stance of  all  my  teaching.  At  Woldingstanton 
I  have  taught  philosophy;  I  have  taught  the 
whole  history  of  mankind.  If  I  could  not  have 
done  that  without  leaving  chemistry  and  phys- 
ics, mathematics  and  languages  out  of  the  cur- 
riculum altogether  I  would  have  left  them  out. 
And  you  see  why,  Dr.  Barrack. ' ' 

^^  I  see  your  position  certainly,''  said  Dr. 
Barrack. 

*^  And  now  that  my  heavens  a,re_  darkened, 
now  that  my  eyes  have  been  opened  to  the 
wretchedness,  futility  and  horror  in  the  texture 
of  life,  I  still  cling,  I  cling  more  than  ever,  to 
the  spirit  of  righteousness  mthin  me.  If  there 
is  no  God,  no  mercy,  no  human  kindliness  in 
the  great  frame  of  space  and  time,  if  life  is  a 
writhing  torment,  an  itch  upon  one  little  planet, 
and  the  stars  away  there  in  the  void  no  more 
than  huge  empty  flares,  signifying  nothing,  then 
all  the  brighter  shines  the  flame  of  God  in  my 
heart.  If  the  God  in  my  heart  is  no  son  of 
any  heavenly  father  then  is  he  Prometheus  the 
rebel ;  it  does  not  shake  my  faith  that  he  is  the 
Master  for  whom  I  will  live  and  die.  And  all 
the  more  do  I  cling  to  this  fire  of  human  tradi- 
tion we  have  lit  upon  this  little  planet,  if  it  is 
the  one  gleam  of  spirit  in  all  the  windy  vast- 
ness  of  a  dead  and  empty  universe." 


/ 


106  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Dr.  Barrack  seemed  about  to  interrupt  with 
some  comment,  and  then,  it  was  manifest,  de- 
ferred his  interpolation. 

^*  Loneliness  and  littleness, '^  said  Mr.  Huss, 
*^  harshness  in  the  skies  above  and  in  the  texture 
of  all  things.  If  so  it  is  that  things  are,  so  we 
must  see  them.  Every  baby  in  its  mother's 
arms  feels  safe  in  a  safe  creation;  every  child 
in  its  home.  Many  men  and  women  have  lived 
and  died  happy  in  that  illusion  of  security. 
But  this  war  has  torn  away  the  veil  of  illusion 
from  millions  of  men.  .  .  .  Mankind  is  com- 
ing of  age.  We  can  see  life  at  last  for  what  it 
is  and  what  it  is  not.  Here  we  spin  upon  a 
ball  of  rock  and  nickel-steel,  upon  which  a 
film  of  water,  a  few  score  miles  of  air,  lie  like 
the  bloom  upon  a  plum.  All  about  that  ball  is 
space  unfathomable ;  all  the  suns  and  stars  are 
mere  grains  of  matter  scattered  through  a  vast- 
ness  that  is  otherwise  utterly  void.  To  that 
thin  bloom  upon  a  particle  we  are  confined;  if 
we  tunnel  down  into  the  earth,  presently  it  is 
too  hot  for  us  to  live ;  if  we  soar  five  miles  into 
the  air  we  freeze,  the  blood  runs  out  of  our 
vessels  into  our  lungs,  we  die  suffocated  and 
choked  with  blood.   .    .    . 

*^  Out  of  the  litter  of  muds  and  gravels  that 
make  the  soil  of  the  world  we  have  picked  some 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  107 

traces  of  the  past  of  our  race  and  the  past  of 
life.  In  our  observatories  and  laboratories  we 
have  gleaned  some  hints  of  its  future.  We  have 
a  vision  of  the  opening  of  the  story,  but  the 
first  pages  we  cannot  read.  We  discover  life, 
a  mere  stir  amidst  the  mud,  creeping  along  the 
littoral  of  warm  and  shallow  seas  in  the  brief 
nights  and  days  of  a  swiftly  rotating  earth. 
We  follow  through  vast  ages  the  story  of  life's 
extension  into  the  waters,  and  its  invasion  of 
the  air  and  land.  Plants  creep  upon  the  land 
and  raise  themselves  by  stems  towards  the  sun ; 
a  few  worms  and  crustaceans  follow,  insects 
appear;  and  at  length  come  our  amphibious 
ancestors,  breathing  air  by  means  of  a  swim- 
ming bladder  used  as  a  lung.  From  the  first 
the  land  animals  are  patched-up  creatures. 
They  eke  out  the  fish  ear  they  inherit  by  means 
of  an  ear  drum  made  out  of  a  gill  slit.  You  can 
trace  scale  and  fin  in  bone  and  limb.  At  last 
this  green  scum  of  vegetable  life  with  the  beasts 
entangled  in  its  meshes  creeps  in  the  form  of 
forests  over  the  hills ;  grass  spreads  across  the 
plains,  and  great  animals  follow  it  out  into  the 
open.  What  does  it  all  signify?  No  more  than 
green  moss  spreading  over  an  old  tile.  Steadily 
the  earth  cools  and  the  day  lengthens.  Through 
long  ages  of  warmth  and  moisture  the  wealth  of 


108  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

unmeaning  life  increases ;  come  ages  of  chill  and 
retrocession,  glacial  periods,  and  periods  when 
whole  genera  and  orders  die  out.  Comes  man 
at  last,  the  destroyer,  the  war-maker,  setting 
fire  to  the  world,  burning  the  forests,  exhausting 
the  earth.  What  hope  has  he  in  the  end? 
Always  the  day  drags  longer  and  longer  and 
always  the  sun  radiates  its  energy  away.  A 
time  will  come  when  the  sun  will  glow  dull  red 
in  the  heavens,  shorn  of  all  its  beams,  and 
neither  rising  nor  setting.  A  day  mil  come 
when  the  earth  will  be  as  dead  and  frozen  as 
the  moon.  ...  A  spirit  in  our  hearts,  the 
God  of  mankind,  cries  ^  No !  '  but  is  there  any 
voice  outside  us  in  all  the  cold  and  empty  uni- 
verse that  echoes  that  ^  No'  ?  '' 


§2 

''Ah,  Mr.  Hnss,  Mr.  Huss!''  said  Sir 
Eliphaz. 

His  eye  seemed  seeking  some  point  of  attach- 
ment, and  found  it  at  last  in  the  steel  engraving 
of  Queen  Victoria  giving  a  Bible  to  a  dusky- 
potentate,  which  adorned  the  little  parlour. 

**  Your  sickness  colours  your  vision,''  said 
Sir  Eliphaz.  ^  *  What  you  say  is  so  profoundly 
true  and  so  utterly  false.  Mysteriously  evolved, 
living  as  you  say  in  a  mere  bloom  of  air  and 
moisture  upon  this  tiny  planet,  how  could  we 
exist,  how  could  we  continue,  were  we  not  sus- 
tained in  every  moment  by  the  Mercy  and  Wis- 
dom of  God  I  The  flimsier  life  is,  the  greater 
the  wonder  of  his  Providence.  Not  a  sparrow, ' ' 
said  Sir  Eliphaz,  and  then  enlarging  the  meta- 
phor with  a  boom  in  his  voice,  ''  not  a  hair  of 
my  head,  falls  to  the  ground  without  His  knowl- 
edge and  consent.  ...  I  am  a  man  much 
occupied.  I  cannot  do  the  reading  I  would. 
But  while  you  have  been  reviling  the  works  of 

109 


110  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

God  I  have  been  thinking  of  some  wonders. 


yy 


Sir  Eliphaz  lifted  up  a  hand  with  thumb  and 
finger  opposed,  as  though  he  held  some  exqui- 
site thing  therein. 

^^  The  human  eye,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz,  with 
an  intensity  of  appreciation  that  brought  tears 
to  his  own.   .    .    . 

^  ^  The  cross  fertilization  of  plants.   .    .    . 

*^  The  marvellous  transformations  of  the 
higher  insects.   .    .    . 

**  The  highly  elaborate  wing  scales  of  the 
Lepidoptera. 

*^  The  mercy  that  tempers  the  wind  to  the 
shorn  lamb.   .    .    . 

*^  The  dark  warm  marvels  of  embryology; 
the  order  and  rhythm  and  obedience  with  which 
the  cells  of  the  fertilized  ovum  divide  to  build 
up  the  perfect  body  of  a  living  thing,  yea,  even 
of  a  human  being  —  in  God's  image.  First 
there  is  one  cell,  then  two ;  the  process  of  divi- 
sion is  extremely  beautiful  and  is  called,  I 
believe,  karyohinesis;  then  after  the  two  come 
four,  each  knows  his  part,  each  divides  certainly 
and  marvellously;  eight,  sixteen,  thirty-two.  . 
.  .  Each  of  those  thirty-two  cells  is  a  complete 
thirty-second  part  of  a  man.  Presently  this 
cell  says,  *  I  become  a  hair  ' ;  this,  '  a  blood  cor- 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  Ill 

puscle/  this  ^  a  cell  in  the  brain  of  a  man,  to 
mirror  the  universe.'  Each  goes  to  his  own 
appointed  place.   .    .    . 

**  Would  that  we  could  do  the  like !  ''  said  Sir 
Eliphaz. 

''  Then  consider  water,''  said  Sir  Eliphaz. 
^*  I  am  not  deeply  versed  in  physical  science, 
but  there  are  certain  things  about  water  that 
fill  me  with  wonder  and  amaze.  All  other 
liquids  contract  when  they  solidify.  With  one 
or  two  exceptions  —  useful  in  the  arts.  Water 
expands.  Now  water  is  a  non-conductor  of 
heat,  and  if  water  contracted  and  became  heav- 
ier when  it  became  ice,  it  would  sink  to  the 
bottom  of  the  polar  seas  and  remain  there 
unmelted.  More  ice  would  sink  down  to  it, 
until  all  the  ocean  was  ice  and  life  ceased.  But 
water  does  not  do  so.  No !  .  .  .  Were  it  not 
for  the  vapour  of  water,  which  catches  and 
entangles  the  sun's  heat,  this  world  would 
scorch  by  day  and  freeze  by  night.  Mercy  upon 
mercy,  I  myself,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz  in  tones  i 
of  happy  confession,  ' '  am  ninety  per  cent.  \ 
water.  .    .    .     We  all  are.   ...  '^ 

**  And  think  how  mercifully  winter  is  tem- 
pered to  us  by  the  snow!  When  water  freezes 
in  the  air  in  winter-time,  it  does  not  come  pelt- 
ing  down   as    lumps    of   ice.     Conceivably    it 


112  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

might,  and  then  where  should  we  be?  But  it 
belongs  to  the  hexagonal  system  —  a  system 
prone  to  graceful  frameworks.  It  crystallizes 
into  the  most  delicate  and  beautiful  lace  of  six- 
rayed  crystals  —  wonderful  under  the  micro- 
scope. They  flake  delicately.  They  lie  loosely 
one  upon  another.  Out  of  ice  is  woven  a  warm 
garment  like  wool,  white  like  wool  because  like 
wool  it  is  full  of  air  —  a  warm  garment  for  bud 
and  shoot.   .    .    . 

*  *  Then  again  —  you  revile  God  for  the  para- 
sites he  sends.  But  are  they  not  sent  to  teach 
us  a  great  moral  lesson?  Each  one  for  himself 
and  God  for  us  all.  Not  so  the  parasites.  They 
choose  a  life  of  base  dependence.  With  that 
comes  physical  degeneration,  swift  and  sure. 
They  are  the  Socialists  of  nature.  They  lose 
their  limbs.  They  lose  colour,  become  blenched, 
unappetising  beings,  vile  creatures  of  sloth  — 
often  microscopic.  Do  they  not  urge  us  by  their 
shameful  lives  to  self  help  and  exertion?  Yet 
even  parasites  have  a  use !  I  am  told  that  were 
it  not  for  parasitic  bacteria  man  could  not  digest 
his  food.  A  lichen  again  is  made  up  of  an  alga 
and  a  fungus,  mutually  parasitic.  That  is  called 
symbiosis  —  living  together  for  a  mutual  ben- 
efit. Maybe  every  one  of  those  thousands  of 
parasites  you  deem  so  horrible  is  working  its 
way  upward  towards  an  arrangement  —  '  ^ 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  113 

Sir  Elipliaz  weighed  his  words:  **  Some 
mutually  advantageous  arrangement  with  its 
host.    A  paying  guest. 

'^  And  finally,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz,  with  the 
roll  of  distant  thunder  in  his  voice,  *^  think  of 
the  stately  procession  of  life  upon  the  earth, 
through  a  myriad  of  forms  the  glorious  cres- 
cendo of  evolution,  up  to  its  climax,  man.  What 
a  work  is  man!  The  paragon  of  creation,  the 
microcosm  of  the  cosmos,  the  ultimate  birth  of 
time.  .  .  .  And  you  would  have  us  doubt  the 
guiding  hand !  ' ' 

He  ceased  with  a  gesture. 

Mr.  Dad  made  a  noise  like  responses  in 
church. 


§3 

*  ^  A  certain  beauty  in  the  world  is  no  mark  of 
God's  favour/'  said  Mr.  Huss.  ^^  There  is  no 
beauty  one  may  not  balance  by  an  equal 
ugliness.  The  wart-hog  and  the  hyaena,  the 
tapeworm  and  the  stinkhorn,  are  equally  God's 
creations.  Nothing  you  have  said  points  to 
anything  but  a  cold  indifference  towards  us  of 
this  order  in  which  we  live.  Beauty  happens; 
it  is  not  given.  Pain,  suffering,  happiness; 
there  is  no  heed.  Only  in  the  heart  of  man 
burns  the  fire  of  righteousness." 

For  a  time  Mr.  Huss  was  silent.  Then  he 
went  on  answering  Sir  Eliphaz. 

*^  You  spoke  of  the  wonder  of  the  cross-fer- 
tilization of  plants.  But  do  you  not  know  that 
half  these  curious  and  elaborate  adaptations  no 
longer  work  1  Scarcely  was  their  evolution  com- 
pleted before  the  special  need  that  produced 
them  ceased.  Half  the  intricate  flowers  you  see 
are  as  futile  as  the  ruins  of  Palmyra.  They  are 
self-fertilized  or  wind-fertilized.  The  trans- 
formation of  the  higher  insects  which  give  us 

114 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  115 

our  gnats  and  wasps,  our  malaria  and  apple- 
maggots  in  due  season,  are  a  matter  for  human 
astonishment  rather  than  human  gratitude.  If 
there  is  any  design  in  these  strange  and  intri- 
cate happenings,  surely  it  is  the  design  of  a 
misplaced  and  inhuman  ingenuity.  The  scales 
of  the  lepidoptera,  again,  have  wasted  their 
glittering  splendours  for  millions  of  years.  If 
they  were  meant  for  man,  why  do  the  most  beau- 
tiful species  fly  by  night  in  the  tropical  forests  ? 
As  for  the  human  eye,  oculists  and  opticians  are 
scarcely  of  your  opinion.  You  h}Tiin  the  pecu- 
liar properties  of  water  that  make  life  possible. 
They  make  it  possible.  Do  they  make  it  other 
than  it  is? 

*^  You  have  talked  of  the  marvels  of  embry- 
onic growth  in  the  egg.  I  admit  the  wonderful 
precision  of  the  process ;  but  how  does  it  touch 
my  doubts  1  Eather  it  confuses  them,  as  though 
the  God  who  rules  the  world  ruled  not  so  much 
in  love  as  in  irony.  Wonderfully  indeed  do  the 
cells  divide  and  the  chromoplasts  of  the  divi- 
sion slide  along  their  spindle  lines.  They  divide 
not  as  if  a  divine  hand  guided  them  but  with  re- 
morseless logic,  with  the  pitiless  consistency 
of  a  mathematical  process.  They  divide  and 
marshal  themselves  and  turn  this  way  and  that, 
to  make  an  idiot,  to  make  a  congenital  cripple. 


116  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Millions  of  such  miracles  pile  up  —  and  produce 
the  swaying  drunkard  at  the  pot-house  door. 

*^  You  talk  of  the  crescendo  of  evolution,  of 
the  first  beginnings  of  life,  and  how  the  scheme 
unfolds  until  it  culminates  in  us  —  us,  here, 
under  these  circumstances,  you  and  Mr.  Dad 
and  Farr  and  me  —  waiting  for  the  knife. 
Would  that  I  could  see  any  such  crescendo !  I 
see  change  indeed  and  change  and  change,  with- 
out plan  and  without  heart.  Consider  for 
example  the  migrations  of  birds  across  the 
Mediterranean,  and  the  tragic  absurdity  of  its 
incidents.  Ages  ago,  and  for  long  ages,  there 
stretched  continuous  land  connexions  from  Af- 
rica to  Europe.  Then  the  instinct  was  formed ; 
the  birds  flew  over  land  from  the  heated  south 
to  the  northern  summer  to  build  and  breed. 
Slowly  age  by  age  the  seas  crept  over  those 
necks  of  land.  Those  linking  tracts  have  been 
broken  now  for  a  hundred  thousand  years,  and 
yet  over  a  constantly  widening  sea,  in  which 
myriads  perish  exliausted,  instinct,  blind  and 
pitiless,  still  drives  those  birds.  And  again 
thinl?:  of  those  vain  urgencies  for  some  purpose 
long  since  forgotten,  that  drive  the  swarming 
lemmings  to  their  fate.  And  look  at  man,  your 
evolution's  crown;  consider  his  want  of  balance, 
the  invalidism  of  his  women,  the  extravagant 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  117 

disproportion  of  his  desires.  Consider  the 
Eecord  of  the  Eocks  honestly  and  frankly,  and 
where  can  you  trace  this  crescendo  you  suggest  ? 
There  have  been  great  ages  of  marvellous  tree- 
ferns  and  wonderful  forest  swamps,  and  all 
those  glorious  growths  have  died.  They  did  not 
go  on ;  they  reached  a  climax  and  died ;  another 
sort  of  plant  succeeded  them.  Then  think  of 
all  that  wonderful  fauna  of  the  Mesozoic  times, 
the  age  of  Leviathan ;  the  theriodonts,  reptilian 
beasts,  the  leaping  dinosaurs,  the  mososaurs 
and  suchlike  monsters  of  the  deep,  the  bat- 
winged  pterodactyls,  the  plesiosaurs  and  ichthy- 
osaurs.  Think  of  the  marvels  of  the  Mesozoic 
seas;  the  thousands  of  various  ammonites,  the 
wealth  of  fish  life.  Across  all  that  world  of  life 
swept  death,  as  the  wet  fingers  of  a  child  wipe 
a  drawing  from  a  slate.  They  left  no  descend- 
ants, they  clambered  to  a  vast  variety  and  com- 
plexity and  ceased.  The  dawn  of  the  Eocene 
was  the  bleak  dawn  of  a  denuded  world.  Cres- 
cendo if  you  will,  but  thereafter  diminuendo, 
pianissimo.  And  then  once  again  from  fresh 
obscure  starting-points  far  down  the  stem  life 
swelled,  and  swelled  again,  only  to  dwindle. 
The  world  we  live  in  to-day  is  a  meagre  spec- 
tacle beside  the  abundance  of  the  earlier  Ter- 
tiary time,  when  Behemoth  in  a  thousand  forms. 


118  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Deinotherium,  Titanotherium,  Helladotherium, 
sabre-toothed  tiger,  a  hundred  sorts  of  elephant, 
and  the  like,  pushed  through  the  jungles  that 
are  now  this  mild  world  of  to-day.  Where 
is  that  crescendo  now?  Crescendo!  Through 
those  long  ages  our  ancestors  were  hiding  under 
leaves  and  climbing  into  trees  to  be  out  of  the 
way  of  the  crescendo.  As  the  motif  of  a  cres- 
cendo they  sang  exceedingly  small.  And  now 
for  a  little  w^hile  the  world  is  ours,  and  we  wax 
in  our  turn.  To  what  good?  To  what  end? 
Tell  me,  you  who  say  the  world  is  good,  tell  me 
the  end.  How  can  we  escape  at  last  the  common 
fate  under  the  darkling  sky  of  a  frozen  world?  " 

He  paused  for  some  moments,  weary  with 
speaking. 

li  There  is  no  comfort,"  he  said,  **  in  the 
flowers  or  the  stars;  no  assurance  in  the  past 
and  no  sure  hope  in  the  future.  There  is 
nothing  but  the  God  of  faith  and  courage  in  the 
hearts  of  men.  .  .  .  And  He  gives  no  sign 
of  power,  no  earnest  of  victory.  .  .  .  He 
gives  no  sign.   ..." 

Whereupon  Sir  Eliphaz  breathed  the  word: 
'^Immortality!  " 

'^  Let  me  say  a  word  or  two  upon  Immortal- 
ity," said  Sir  Eliphaz,  breaking  suddenly  into 
eagerness,  **  for  that,  I  presume,  is  the  thing 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  119 

we  have  forgotten.  That,  I  see,  is  the  difference 
between  us  and  you,  Mr.  Huss ;  that  is  why  we 
can  sit  here,  content  to  play  our  partial  roles, 
knowing  full  surely  that  some  day  the  broken 
lines  and  inconsecutivenesses  that  perplex  us  in 
this  life  will  all  be  revealed  and  resolved  into 
their  perfect  circles,  while  you  to  whom  this 
earthly  life  is  all  and  final,  you  must  needs  be  a 
rebel,  you  must  needs  preach  a  doctrine  between 
defiance  and  despair.  ...  If  indeed  death 
ended  all!  Ah!  Then  indeed  you  might  claim 
that  reason  was  on  your  side.  The  afflictions 
of  man  are  very  many.  Why  should  I  deny 
it?  '' 

The  patentee  and  chief  proprietor  of  the  Tem- 
anite  blocks  paused  for  a  moment. 

* '  Yes, ' '  he  said,  peering  up  through  his  eye- 
brows at  the  sky,  ^*  that  is  the  real  issue.  Blind 
to  that,  you  are  blind  to  everything. ' ' 

^*  I  don't  know  whether  I  am  mth  you  on 
this  question  of  immortality.  Sir  Eliphaz,'' 
warned  Dr.  Barrack,  coughing  shortly. 

*^  For  my  part  I'm  altogether  with  him,'' 
said  Mr.  Dad.  '  *  If  there  is  no  immortal  life  — 
well,  what's  the  good  of  being  temperate  and 
decent  and  careful  for  ^ve  and  fifty  years  f  *' 

Sir  Eliphaz  had  decided  now  to  drop  all 
apologetics  for  the  scheme  of  Nature. 


120  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

**  A  place  of  trial,  a  place  of  stimulus  and 
training/'  he  said,  ^^  Respice  finem.  The  clues 
are  all  —  beyond/' 

^*  But  if  you  really  consider  this  world  as  a 
place  for  soul  making,*'  said  Mr.  Huss,  ''  what 
do  you  think  you  are  doing  when  you  propose  to 
turn  Woldingstanton  over  to  Farr  ?  ' ' 

* '  At  any  rate, ' '  said  Farr  tartly,  *  *  we  do  not 
want  soul-blackening  and  counsels  of  despair  at 
Woldingstanton.  We  want  the  boys  taught  to 
serve  and  help  first  in  this  lowly  economic 
sphere,  cheerfully  and  enterprisingly,  and  then 
in  higher  things,  before  they  pass  on — " 

'^  If  death  ends  all,  then  what  is  the  good  of 
trying?  "  Mr.  Dad  said,  still  brooding  over  the 
question.     *  ^  If  I  thought  that  — !  " 

He  added  with  deep  conviction,  * '  I  should  let 
myself  go.   .    .    .     Anyone  would." 

He  blew  heavily,  stuck  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  and  sat  more  deeply  in  his  chair,  an 
indignant  man,  a  business  man  asked  to  give 
up  something  for  nothing. 

For  a  moment  the  little  gathering  hung,  only 
too  manifestly  contemplating  the  spectacle  of 
Mr.  Dad  amidst  wine,  women,  and  waistcoats 
without  restraint,  letting  himself  go,  eating, 
drinking,  and  rejoicing,  being  a  perfect  devil, 
because  on  the  morrow  he  had  to  die.  .   .   . 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  121 

**  Immortal,"  said  Mr.  Huss.  ^'  I  did  not  ex- 
pect immortality  to  come  into  this  discussion. 

•       •       • 

*^  Are  you  immortal,  Farrf  "  he  asked 
abruptly. 

^*  I  hope  so,'^  said  Mr.  Farr.  '^  Unworthy 
though  I  be." 

"  Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Huss.  ''  And  so  that 
is  the  way  out  for  us.  You  and  I,  Mr.  Dad 
from  his  factory,  and  Sir  Eliphaz  from  his 
building  office,  are  to  soar.  It  is  all  arranged 
for  us,  and  that  is  why  the  tragic  greatness  of 
life  is  to  be  hidden  from  my  boys.   .    .    . 

**  Yet  even  so,"  continued  Mr.  Huss,  **  I  do 
not  see  why  you  should  be  so  anxious  for  tech- 
nical science  and  so  hostile  to  the  history  of 
mankind.  ^ ' 

^'  Because  it  is  not  a  true  history,"  said  Sir 
Eliphaz,  his  hair  waving  about  like  the  hair  of 
a  man  electrified  by  fresh  ideas.  ''  Because  it 
is  a  bunch  of  loose  ends  that  are  really  not  ends 
at  all,  but  only  beginnings  that  pass  suddenly 
into  the  unseen.  I  admit  that  in  this  world 
nothing  is  rationalized,  nothing  is  clearly  just. 
I  admit  everything  you  say.  But  the  reason? 
The  reason?  Because  this  life  is  onty  the  first 
page  of  the  great  book  we  have  to  read.  We 
sit  here,  Mr.  Huss,  like  men  in  a  waiting-room. 


122  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

.    .    .     All  this  life  is  like  waiting  outside,  in  a    ' 
place  of  some  disorder,  before  being  admitted 
to  the  wider  reality,  the  larger  sphere,  where  all 
the  cruelties,  all  these  confusions,  everything  — 
will  be  explained,  justified  —  and  set  right. ' ' 

He  paused,  and  then  perceiving  that  Mr.  Huss 
was  about  to  speak  he  resumed,  raising  his  voice 
slightly. 

*  ^  And  I  do  not  speak  without  my  book  in  these 
matters,''  he  said.  ^*  I  have  been  greatly  im- 
pressed —  and,  what  is  more.  Lady  Burrows  has 
been  greatly  impressed,  by  the  writings  of  two 
thoroughly  scientific  men,  two  thoroughly  sci- 
entific men.  Dr.  Conan  Doyle  and  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge.  Ever  since  she  lost  her  younger  sister 
early  in  life  Lady  Burrows  has  followed  up  this 
interest.  It  has  been  a  great  consolation  to 
her.  And  the  point  is,  as  Sir  Oliver  insists  in 
that  wonderful  book  ^  Raymond, '  that  continued 
existence  in  another  world  is  as  proven  now  as 
the  atomic  theory  in  chemistry.  It  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  faith,  but  knowledge.  The  partition  is 
breached  at  last.  We  are  in  communication. 
News  is  coming  through.  .  .  .  Scientific  cer- 
tainty. .    .    . " 

Sir  Eliphaz  cleared  his  throat.  ^'  We  have 
already  evidences  and  descriptions  of  the  life 
into  which  we  shall  pass.     Eemember  this  is  no 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  123 

idle  talk,  no  deception  by  Sludges  and  the  like; 
it  is  a  great  English  scientific  man  who  pub- 
lishes these  records ;  it  is  a  great  French  philos- 
opher, no  less  a  man  than  that  wonderful 
thinker  —  and  how  he  thinks !  —  Professor 
Bergson,  who  counselled  their  publication.  A 
glory  of  science  and  a  glory  of  philosophy  com- 
bine to  reassure  us.  We  walk  at  last  upon  a 
path  of  fact  into  that  further  world.  We  know 
already  much.  /We  know,  for  example,  that 
those  who  have  passed  over  to  that  higher  plane 
have  bodies  still.  That  I  found  —  comforting. 
Without  that  —  one  would  feel  bleak.  But,  the 
messages  say,  the  internal  organs  are  consti- 
tuted differently.  Naturally.  As  one  would 
have  expected.  The  dietary  is,  I  gather,  prac- 
tically non-existent.  Needless.  As  the  outline 
is  the  same  the  space  is,  I  presume,  used 
for  other  purposes.  Some  sort  of  astral  stor- 
age. .  .  .  They  do  not  bleed.  An  interesting 
fact.  Lady  Burrows'  sister  is  now  practically 
bloodless.  And  her  teeth  —  she  had  lost  sev- 
eral, she  suffered  greatly  with  her  teeth  —  her 
teeth  have  all  been  replaced  —  a  beautiful  set. 
Used  now  only  for  articulate  speech. ' ' 

*  ^  *  Raymond  '    all    over    again, ' '    said    the 
doctor. 

*  *  You  have  read  the  book !  ' '  said  Sir  Eliphaz. 


124  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

The  doctor  grunted  in  a  manner  that  mingled 
assent  and  disapproval.  His  expression  be- 
trayed the  scientific  bigot. 

**  We  know  now  details  of  the  passage/'  said 
Sir  Eliphaz.  *^  We  have  some  particulars.  We 
know,  for  instance,  that  people  blown  to  pieces 
take  some  little  time  to  reconstitute.  There  is 
a  correlation  between  this  corruptible  body  and 
the  spirit  body  that  replaces  it.  There  is  a  sort 
of  spirit  doctor  over  there,  very  helpful  in  such 
cases.  /  And  burnt  bodies,  too,  are  a  trouble. 
.  .  .  The  sexes  are  still  distinct,  but  all  the 
coarseness  of  sex  is  gone.  The  passions  fade 
in  that  better  world.  Every  passion.  Even  the 
habit  of  smoking  and  the  craving  for  alcohol 
fade.  Not  at  first.  The  newly  dead  will  some- 
times ask  for  a  cigar.  They  are  given  cigars, 
higher-plane  cigars,  and  they  do  not  ask  for 
more.  There  are  no  children  born  there. 
Nothing  of  that  sort.  That,  it  is  very  impor- 
tant to  understand.  Here  is  the  place  of  birth ; 
this  is  where  lives  begin.  This  coarse  little 
planet  is  the  seed-bed  of  life.  When  it  has 
served  its  purpose  and  populated  those  higher 
planes,  then  indeed  it  may  freeze,  as  you  say. 
A  mere  empty  hull.  A  seed-case  that  has 
served  its  purpose,  mattering  nothing.  These 
are  the  thoughts,  the  comforting  and  beautiful 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  125 

thoughts,  that  receive  the  endorsement  of  our 
highest  scientific  and  philosophical  intelligences. 
.  .  .  One  thinks  of  that  life  there,  no  doubt 
in  some  other  dimension  of  space,  that  world 
arranged  in  planes  —  metaphorical  planes,  of 
course,  in  which  people  go  to  and  fro,  living  in 
a  sort  of  houses,  surrounded  by  a  sort  of  beau- 
tiful things,  made,  so  we  are  told,  from  the 
smells  of  the  things  we  have  here.  That  is 
curious,  but  not  irrational.  Our  favorite  dog- 
gies will  be  there.  Sublimated  also.  That 
thought  has  been  a  great  comfort  to  Lady  Bur- 
rows. .  .  .  We  had  a  dog  called  Fido,  a  leetle, 
teeny  fellow  —  practically  human.   .    .    . 

*^  These  blessed  ones  engage  very  largely  in 
conversation.  Other  occupations  I  found  diffi- 
cult to  trace.  Raymond  attended  a  sort  of  re- 
ception on  the  very  highest  plane.  It  was  a 
special  privilege.  Perhaps  a  compliment  to  Sir 
Oliver.  He  met  the  truth  of  revealed  religion, 
so  to  speak,  personally.  It  was  a  wonderful 
moment.  Sir  Oliver  suppresses  the  more  sol- 
emn details.  Lady  Burrows  intends  to  write 
to  him.  She  is  anxious  for  particulars.  But 
I  will  not  dilate, '^  said  Sir  Eliphaz.  **  I  will 
not  dilate.'' 

^^  And  you  believe  this  stuff?  ''  said  the  doc- 
tor iji  tones  of  the  deepest  disgust. 


126  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

Sir  Eliphaz  waved  himself  upon  the  ques- 
tioner. 

^  ^  So  far  as  poor  earthly  expressions  can  body 
forth  spiritual  things, '^  he  hedged. 

He  regarded  his  colleagues  with  an  eye  of 
florid  defiance.  Both  Mr.  Farr  and  Mr.  Dad 
had  slightly  shamefaced  expressions,  and  Mr. 
Dad's  ears  were  red. 

Mr.  Dad  cleared  his  throat.  **  I'm  sure 
there's  something  in  it  —  anyhow,"  said  Mr. 
Dad  hoarsely,  doing  his  best  in  support. 

**  If  I  was  born  with  a  hare  lip,"  said  the 
doctor,  ''  would  that  be  put  right?  Do  congen- 
ital idiots  get  sublimated?  What  becomes  of  a 
dog  one  has  shot  for  hydrophobia?  " 

**  To  all  of  such  questions,"  said  Sir  Eliphaz 
serenely,  **  the  answer  is  —  we  don't  know. 
Why  should  we?  " 


ii 


§4 

Mr.  Huss  seemed  lost  in  meditation.  His  pale 
and  sunken  face  and  crumpled  pose  contrasted 
strongly  with  the  bristling  intellectual  rectitude 
and  mounting  choler  of  Dr.  Elihu  Barrack. 

''  No,  Sir  Eliphaz/^  said  Mr.  Huss,  and 
sighed. 

No,''  he  repeated. 

What  a  poor  phantom  of  a  world  these 
people  conjure  up !  What  a  mockery  of  loss 
and  love!  The  very  mothers  and  lovers  who 
mourn  their  dead  will  not  believe  their  foolish 
stories.  Eestoration!  It  is  a  crowning  indig- 
nity. It  makes  me  think  of  nothing  in  the  world 
but  my  dear  boy's  body,  broken  and  crumpled, 
and  some  creature,  half  fool  and  half  impostor, 
sitting  upon  it,  getting  between  it  and  me,  and 
talking  cheap  rubbish  over  it  about  planes  of 
being  and  astral  bodies.   .    .    . 

^*  After  all,  you  teach  me.  Sir  Eliphaz,  that 
life,  for  all  its  grossness  and  pain  and  horror, 
is  not  so  bad  as  it  might  be  —  if  such  things  as 
this  were  true.     But  it  needs  no  sifting  of  the 

127 


128  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

evidence  to  know  they  are  untrue.  No  sane  man 
believes  this  stuff  for  ten  minutes  together.  It 
is  impossible  to  believe  it.   .    .    .  " 

Dr.  Elihu  Barrack  applauded.  Sir  Eliphaz 
acted  a  fine  self-restraint. 

*^  They  are  contrary  to  the  texture  of  every- 
thing we  know/'  said  Mr.  Huss.  *^  They  are 
less  convincing  than  the  wildest  dreams.  By 
pain,  by  desire,  by  muscular  effort,  by  the  feel- 
ing of  sunshine  or  of  rain  in  the  face,  by  their 
sense  of  justice  and  such-like  essential  things 
do  men  test  the  reality  of  appearances  before 
them.  This  certainly  is  no  reality.  It  has  none 
of  the  feel  of  reality.  I  will  not  even  argue 
about  it.  It  is  thrust  now  upon  a  suffering 
world  as  comfort,  and  even  as  comfort  for 
people  stunned  and  uncritical  with  grief  it  fails. 
You  and  Lady  Burrows  may  be  pleased  to  think 
that  somehow  you  two,  mth  your  teeth  restored 
and  your  complexions  rejuvenated,  will  meet 
again  the  sublimation  of  your  faithful  Fido. 
At  any  rate,  thank  God  for  that,  I  know  clearly 
that  so  I  shall  never  meet  my  son.  Never !  He 
has  gone  from  me.   .    .    .  " 

For  some  moments  mental  and  physical  suf- 
fering gripped  him,  and  he  could  not  speak ;  but 
his  purpose  to  continue  was  so  manifested  by 
sweating  face  and  gripping  hand  that  no  one 
spoke  until  he  spoke  again. 


DO  WE  TRULY  DIE?  129 

**  Now  let  me  speak  plainly  about  Immortal- 
ity. For  surely  I  stand  nearest  to  that  pos- 
sibility of  all  of  us  here.  ^  Immortality,  then, 
is  no  such  dodging  away  as  you  imagine,  from 
this  strange  world  wliich  is  so  desolating,  so 
dreadful,  so  inexplicable  —  and  at  times  so 
utterly  lonely.  \  There  may  be  a  God  in  the  uni- 
verse or  there  may  not  be.  .  .  .  God,  if  he 
exists,  can  be  terribly  silent.  .  .  .  But  if  there 
is  a  God,  he  is  a  coherent  God.  If  there  is  a 
God  above  and  in  the  scheme  of  things,  then 
not  only  you  and  I  and  my  dead  son,  but  the 
crushed  frog  and  the  trampled  anthill  signify. 
On  that  the  God  in  my  heart  insists.  There  has 
to  be  an  answer,  not  only  to  the  death  of  my 
son  but  to  the  dying  penguin  roasted  alive  for 
a  farthing's  worth  of  oil.  There  must  be  an 
answer  to  the  men  who  go  in  ships  to  do  such 
things.  There  has  to  be  a  justification  for  all 
the  filth  and  wretchedness  of  louse  and  fluke. 
I  mil  not  have  you  slipping  by  on  the  other 
side,  chattering  of  planes  of  living  and  subli- 
mated atoms,  while  there  is  a  drunken  mother 
or  a  man  dying  of  cholera  in  this  world.  I  will 
not  hear  of  a  God  who  is  just  a  means  for  get- 
ting away.  Whatever  foulness  and  beastliness 
there  is,  you  must  square  God  with  that.  Or 
there  is  no  universal  God,  but  only  a  coldness, 
a  vast  cruel  indifference.   .    .    . 


130  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

''  I  would  not  make  my  peace  with  such  a 
God  if  I  could.   .    .    . 

**  I  tell  you  of  these  black  and  sinister  real- 
ities, and  what  do  you  reply?  That  it  is  all 
right,  because  after  death  we  shall  get  away 
from  them.  Why !  if  presently  I  go  down  under 
the  surgeon's  knife,  down  out  of  this  hot  and 
weary  world,  and  then  find  myself  being  put 
together  by  a  spirit  doctor  in  this  beyond  of 
yours,  waking  up  to  a  new  world  of  amiable 
conversations  and  artificial  flowers,  having  my 
hair  restored  and  the  gaps  among  my  teeth 
filled  up,  I  shall  feel  like  someone  who  has  de- 
serted his  kind,  who  has  sneaked  from  a  sick- 
room into  a  party.  .  .  .  Well  —  my  infection 
will  go  with  me.  I  shall  talk  of  nothing  but  the 
tragedy  out  of  which  I  have  come  —  which  still 
remains  —  which  continues  —  tragedy. 

'^  And  yet  I  believe  in  Immortality!  " 

Dr.  Barrack,  who  had  hitherto  been  following 
Mr.  Huss  with  evident  approval,  started, 
sounded  a  note  of  surprise  and  protest,  and  fixed 
accusing  eyes  upon  him.  For  the  moment  he 
did  not  interrupt. 

**  But  it  is  not  I  that  am  immortal,  but  the 
God  within  me.  All  this  personal  immortality 
of  which  you  talk  is  a  mockery  of  our  person- 
alities.    What  is  there  personal  in  us  that  can 


DO   WE  TRULY   DIE?  131 

live?  What  makes  us  our  very  selves?  It  is 
all  a  niatter  of  little  mean  things,  small  differ- 
ences, slight  defects.  Where  does  personal  love 
grip?  —  on  just  these  petty  things.  ...  Oh! 
dearly  and  bitterly  did  I  love  my  son,  and  what 
is  it  that  my  heart  most  craves  for  now!  His 
virtues?  No!  His  ambitions?  His  achieve- 
ments ?  .  .  .  No !  none  of  these  things.  .  .  . 
But  for  a  certain  queer  flush  among  his  freckles, 
for  a  kind  of  high  crack  in  his  voice  ...  a 
certain  absurd  hopefulness  in  his  talk  .  .  .  the 
sound  of  his  footsteps,  a  little  halt  there  was  in 
the  rhythm  of  them.  These  are  the  things  we 
long  for.  These  are  the  things  that  wring  the 
heart.  .  .  .  But  all  these  things  are  just  the 
mortal  things,  just  the  defects  that  would  be 
touched  out  upon  this  higher  plane  you  talk 
about.  You  would  give  him  back  to  me  smoothed 
and  polished  and  regularized.  So,  I  grant,  it 
must  be  if  there  is  to  be  this  higher  plane.  But 
what  does  it  leave  of  personal  distinction? 
What  does  it  leave  of  personal  love? 

*^  When  my  son  has  had  his  defects  smoothed 
away,  then  he  will  be  like  all  sons.  When  the 
older  men  have  been  ironed  out,  they  mil  be 
like  the  younger  men.  There  is  no  personality 
in  hope  and  honour  and  righteousness  and 
truth.  .    .    .     My  son  has  gone.    He  has  gone 


132  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

for  evermore.  The  pain  may  some  day  go 
.  .  .  The  immortal  thing  in  us  is  the  least 
personal  thing.  It  is  not  you  nor  I  who  go 
on  living ;  it  is  Man  that  lives  on,  Man  the  Uni- 
versal, and  he  goes  on  living,  a  tragic  rebel  in 
this  same  world  and  in  no  other.  .  .  . '  ^ 
Mr.  Huss  leant  back  in  his  chair. 
/  ^^  There  burns  an  undying  fire  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  By  that  fire  I  live.  By  that  I  know  the 
God  of  my  Salvation.  His  will  is  Truth;  His 
will  is  Service.  He  urges  me  to  conflict,  with- 
out consolations,  without  rewards.  He  takes 
and  does  not  restore.  He  uses  up  and  does  not 
atone.  He  suffers  —  perhaps  to  triumph,  and 
we  must  suffer  and  find  our  hope  of  triumph 
in  Him.  He  will  not  let  me  shut  my  eyes  to 
sorrow,  failure,  or  perplexity.  Though  the  uni- 
verse torment  and  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
Him.  And  if  He  also  must  die —  Neverthe- 
less I  can  do  no  more ;  I  must  serve  Him.  .  .  . ' ' 
He  ceased.  For  some  moments  no  one  spoke^ 
silenced  by  his  intensity. 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 

ELIHU     REPROVES     JOB 

§  1 

**  I  don't  know  how  all  this  strikes  you/'  said 
Mr.  Farr,  turning  suddenly  upon  Dr.  Barrack. 

*^  Well  —  it's  interestinV'  said  Dr.  Barrack, 
leaning  forward  upon  his  folded  arms  upon  the 
table,  and  considering  his  words  carefully. 

*^  It's  interestinV^  he  repeated.  ^*  I  don't 
know  how  far  you  want  to  hear  what  I  think 
about  it.     I'm  rather  a  downright  person." 

Sir  Eliphaz  with  great  urbanity  motioned  him 
to  speak  on. 

*^  There's  been,  if  you'll  forgive  me,  nonsense 
upon  both  sides." 

He  turned  to  Sir  Eliphaz.  ''  This  Spook 
stuff, ' '  he  said,  and  paused  and  compressed  his 
lips  and  shook  his  head. 

'*■  It  won't  do. 

^'  I  have  given  some  little  attention  to  the 
evidences  in  that  matter.     I'm  something  of  a 

133 


134  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

psychologist  —  a  doctor  has  to  be.  Of  course, 
Sir  Eliphaz,  you're  not  responsible  for  all  the 
nonsense  you  have  been  talking  about  sub- 
limated bricks  and  spook  dogs  made  of  concen- 
trated smell.'' 

Sir  Eliphaz  was  convulsed.  ^ '  Tut,  tut !  "  he 
said.     *  *  But  indeed  — !  " 

*^  No  offence,  Sir  Eliphaz!  If  you  don't  want 
me  to  talk  I  won't;  but  if  you  do,  then  I  must 
say  what  I  have  in  my  mind.  And  as  I  say,  I 
don't  hold  you  responsible  for  the  things  you 
have  been  saying.  All  this  cheap  medium  stuff 
has  been  shot  upon  the  world  by  Sir  Oliver  J. 
Lodge,  handed  out  by  him  to  people  distraught 
with  grief,  in  a  great  fat  impressive-looking 
volume.  ...  No  end  of  them  have  tried  their 
utmost  to  take  it  seriously.  ...  It's  been  a 
pitiful  business.  ...  I've  no  doubt  the  man 
is  honest  after  his  lights,  but  what  lights  they 
are!  Obstinate  credulity  posing  as  liberalism. 
He  takes  every  pretence  and  dodge  of  these 
mediums,  he  accepts  their  explanations,  he  edits 
their  babble  and  rearranges  it  to  make  it  seem 
striking.  Look  at  his  critical  ability !  Because 
many  of  the  mediums  are  fairly  respectable 
people  who  either  make  no  money  by  their  — 
revelations,  or  at  most  a  very  ordinary  living  — 
it 's  a  guinea  a  go,  I  believe,  usually  —  he  insists 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  135 

upon  their  honesty.  That's  his  key  blunder. 
Any  doctor  could  tell  him,  as  I  could  have  told 
him  after  my  first  year's  practice,  that  telling 
the  truth  is  the  very  last  triumph  of  the  human 
mind.  Hardly  any  of  my  patients  tell  the  truth 
—  ever.  It  isn't  only  that  they  haven't  a  tithe 
of  the  critical  ability  and  detachment  necessary, 
they  haven't  any  real  desire  to  tell  the  truth. 
They  want  to  produce  effects.  Human  beings 
are  artistic  still;  they  aren't  beginning  to  be 
scientific.  Either  they  minimize  or  they  exag- 
gerate. We  all  do.  If  I  saw  a  cat  run  over 
outside  and  I  came  in  here  to  tell  you  about  it, 
I  should  certainly  touch  up  the  story,  make  it 
more  dramatic,  hurt  the  cat  more,  make  the 
dray  bigger  and  so  on.  I  should  want  to  justify 
my  telling  the  story.  Put  a  woman  in  that  chair 
there,  tell  her  to  close  her  eyes  and  feel  odd, 
and  she  '11  feel  odd  right  enough ;  tell  her  to  pro- 
duce words  and  sentences  that  she  finds  in  her 
head  and  she'll  produce  them;  give  her  half  a 
hint  that  it  comes  from  eastern  Asia  and  the 
stuff  will  begin  to  correspond  to  her  ideas  of 
pigeon  English.  It  isn't  that  she  is  cunningly 
and  elaborately  deceiving  you.  It  is  that  she 
wants  to  come  up  to  your  expectation.  You  are 
focussing  your  interest  on  her,  and  all  human 
beings  like  to  have  interest  focussed  on  them, 


135  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

so  long  as  it  isn't  too  hostile.  She'll  cling  to 
that  interest  all  she  knows  how.  She'll  cling 
instinctively.  Most  of  these  mediums  never 
held  the  attention  of  a  roomful  of  people  in  their 
lives  until  they  found  out  this  way  of  doing  it. 
.    .    .     What  can  you  expect?  " 

Dr.  Barrack  cleared  his  throat.  *'  But  all 
that's  beside  the  question,"  he  said.  ^^  Don't 
think  that  because  I  reject  all  this  spook  stuff, 
I'm  setting  up  any  finality  for  the  science  we 
have  to-day.  It's  just  a  little  weak  squirt  of 
knowledge  —  all  the  science  in  the  world.  I 
grant  you  there  may  be  forces,  I  would  almost 
say  there  must  be  forces  in  the  world,  forces 
universally  present,  of  which  we  still  know 
nothing.  Take  the  case  of  electricity.  What 
did  men  know  of  electricity  in  the  days  of  Gil- 
bert! Practically  nothing.  In  the  early  Neo- 
lithic age  I  doubt  if  any  men  had  ever  noticed 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  air.  I  grant  you  that 
most  things  are  still  unknown.  Things  perhaps 
right  under  our  noses.  But  that  doesn't  help 
the  case  of  Sir  Eliphaz  one  little  bit.  These 
unkno^m  things,  as  they  become  kno^vn,  will 
join  on  to  the  things  we  do  know.  They'll  com- 
plicate or  perhaps  simplify  our  ideas,  but  they 
won't  coijiradict  our  general  ideas.  They'll  be 
things  in  the  system.     They  won't  get  you  out 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  137 

of  the  grip  of  the  arguments  Mr.  Huss  has 
brought  forward.  So  far,  so  far  as  concerns 
your  Immortality,  Sir  Eliphaz,  I  am,  yon  see, 
entirely  with  Mr.  Huss.  It's  a  fancy;  it's  a 
dream.  As  a  fancy  it's  about  as  pretty  as 
creaking  boards  at  bedtime;  as  a  dream — . 
It's  unattractive.    As  Mr,  Huss  has  said. 

"  But  when  it  comes  to  Mr.  Huss  and  his 
Immortality  then  I  find  myself  with  you,  gentle- 
men. That  too  is  a  dream.  Less  than  a  dream. 
Less  even  than  a  fancy;  it's  a  play  on  words. 
Here  is  this  Undying  Flame,  this  Spirit  of  God 
in  man;  it's  in  him,  he  says,  it's  in  you,  Sir  Eli- 
phaz, it 's  in  you,  Mr.  —  Dad,  wasn  't  it  ?  it 's  in 
this  other  gentleman  whose  name  I  didn't  quite 
catch;  and  it's  in  me.  Well,  it's  extraordinary 
that  none  of  us  know  of  it  except  Mr.  Huss. 
How  you  feel  about  it  I  don't  know,  but  per- 
sonally I  object  to  being  made  part  of  God  and 
one  with  Mr.  Huss  without  my  consent  in  this 
way.  I  prefer  to  remain  myself.  That  may 
be  egotism,  but  I  am  by  nature  an  egotistical 
creature.    And  Agnostic.  .    .    . 

''  You've  got  me  talking  now,  and  I  may  as 
well  go  through  with  it.  What  is  an  Agnostic 
really?  A  man  who  accepts  fully  the  limita- 
tions of  the  human  intelligence,  who  takes  the 
world  as  he  finds  it,  and  who  takes  himself  as 


138  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

he  finds  himself  and  declines  to  go  further. 
There  may  be  other  universes  and  dimensions 
galore.  There  may  be  a  fourth  dimension,  for 
example,  and,  if  you  like,  a  fifth  dimension  and 
a  sixth  dimension  and  any  number  of  other 
dimensions.  They  don't  concern  me.  I  live  in 
this  universe  and  in  three  dimensions,  and  I 
have  no  more  interest  in  all  these  other  uni- 
verses and  dimensions  than  a  bug  under  the 
wallpaper  has  in  the  deep,  deep  sea.  Possibly 
there  are  bugs  under  the  wallpaper  with  a  kind 
of  reasoned  consciousness  of  the  existence  of 
the  deep,  deep  sea,  and  a  half  belief  that  when 
at  last  the  Keating 's  powder  gets  them,  thither 
they  will  go.  I  —  if  I  may  have  one  more  go 
at  the  image  —  just  live  under  the  wallpaper. 

•       •       • 

**  I  am  an  Agnostic,  I  say.  I  have  had  my 
eyes  pretty  well  open  at  the  universe  since  I 
came  into  it  six  and  thirty  years  ago.  And  not 
only  have  I  never  seen  nor  heard  of  nor  smelt 
nor  touched  a  ghost  or  spirit.  Sir  Eliphaz,  but 
I  have  never  seen  a  gleam  or  sign  of  this  Provi- 
dence, the  Great  God  of  the  World  of  yours,  or 
of  this  other  minor  and  modern  God  that  Mr. 
Huss  has  taken  up.  In  the  hearts  of  men  I 
have  found  malformations,  ossifications,  clots, 
and  fatty  degeneration ;  but  never  a  God. 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  139 

**  You  will  excuse  me  if  I  speak  plainly  to 
you,  gentlemen,  but  this  gentleman,  whose  name 
I  haven't  somehow  got — '' 

''  Farr/' 

*^  Mr.  Farr,  has  brought  it  down  on  himself 
and  you.  He  called  me  in,  and  I  am  interested 
in  these  questions.  It's  clear  to  me  that  since 
we  exist  there 's  something  in  all  this.  But  what 
it  is  I'm  convinced  I  haven't  the  ganglia  even 
to  begin  to  understand.  I  decline  either  the 
wild  guesses  of  the  Spookist  and  Providential- 
ist  —  I  must  put  you  there,  I'm  afraid,  Sir 
Eliphaz  —  or  the  metaphors  of  Mr.  Huss. 
Fact.  ..." 

Dr.  Barrack  paused.  ^*  I  put  my  faith  in 
Fact" 

'^  There's  a  lot  in  Fact,"  said  Mr.  Dad,  who 
found  much  that  was  congenial  in  the  doctor's 
downright  style. 

*^  What  do  I  see  about  me?  "  asked  Dr.  Bar- 
rack, i^  A  struggle  for  existence./  About  that 
I  ask  a  very  plain  and  simple  queslion :  why  try 
to  get  behind  it?  That  is  It.  It  made  me.  I 
study  it  and  watch  it.  It  put  me  up  like  a  cock- 
shy, and  it  keeps  on  trying  to  destroy  me.  I  do 
my  best  to  dodge  its  blows.  It  got  my  leg.  My 
head  is  bloody  but  unbowed.  I  reproduce  my 
kind  —  as  abundantly  as  circumstances  permit 


140  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

—  I  stamp  myself  upon  the  universe  as  much 
as  possible.  If  I  am  right,  if  I  do  the  right 
things  and  have  decently  good  luck,  I  shall  hold 
out  until  my  waning  instincts  dispose  me  to 
rest.  My  breed  and  influence  are  the  marks  of 
my  rightness.  What  else  is  there?  You  may 
call  this  struggle  what  you  like.  God,  if  you 
like.  But  God  for  me  is  an  anthropomorphic 
idea.     Call  it  The  Process." 

''  Why  not  Evolution?  '^  said  Mr.  Huss. 

*^  I  prefer  The  Process.  The  word  Evolu- 
tion rather  begs  the  moral  question.  It^s  a 
cheap  word.  *  Shon!  '  Evolution  seems  to 
suggest  just  a  simple  and  automatic  unfolding. 
The  Process  is  complex;  it  has  its  ups  and 
downs  —  as  Mr.  Huss  understands.  It  is  more 
like  a  Will  than  an  Automaton.  A  Will  feeling 
about.  It  isn't  indifferent  to  us  as  Mr.  Huss 
suggests ;  it  uses  us.  It  isn't  subordinate  to  us 
as  Sir  Eliphaz  would  have  us  believe;  playing 
the  part  of  a  Providence  just  for  our  comfort 
and  happiness.  Some  of  us  are  hammer  and 
some  of  us  are  anvil,  some  of  us  are  sparks  and 
some  of  us  are  the  beaten  stuff  which  survives. 
The  Process  doesn't  confide  in  us;  why  should 
it  I  We  learn  what  we  can  about  it,  and  make 
what  is  called  a  practical  use  of  it,  for  that  is 
what  the  will  in  the  Process  requires." 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  141 

Mr.  Dad,  stirred  by  the  word  *  practical,' 
made  a  noise  of  assent.  But  not  a  very  confi- 
dent noise :  a  loan  rather  than  a  gift. 

**  And  that  is  where  it  seems  to  me  Mr.  Huss 
goes  wrong  altogether.  He  does  not  submit 
himself  to  those  Realities.  He  sets  up  some- 
thing called  the  Spirit  in  Man,  or  the  God  in  his 
Heart,  to  judge  them.  He  wants  to  judge  the 
universe  by  the  standards  of  the  human  intelli- 
gence at  its  present  stage  of  development. 
That's  where  I  fall  out  with  him.  These  are  not 
fixed  standards.  Man  goes  on  developing  and 
evolving.  Some  things  offend  the  sense  of  jus- 
tice in  Mr.  Huss,  but  that  is  no  enduring  cri- 
terion of  justice ;  the  human  sense  of  justice  has 
developed  out  of  something  different,  and  it  will 
develop  again  into  something  different.  Like 
everything  else  in  us,  it  has  been  produced  by 
the  Process  and  it  will  be  modified  by  the 
Process.  Some  things,  again,  he  says  are  not 
beautiful.  There  also  he  would  condemn.  But 
nothing  changes  like  the  sense  of  beauty.  A 
band  of  art  students  can  start  a  new  movement, 
cubist,  vorticist,  or  what  not,  and  change  your 
sense  of  beauty.  If  seeing  things  as  beautiful 
conduces  to  survival,  we  shall  see  them  as  beau- 
tiful sooner  or  later,  rest  assured.  I  daresay 
the  hyenas  admire  each  other  —  in  the  rutting 


142  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

season  anyhow.  ...  So  it  is  with  mercy  and 
with  everything.  Each  creature  has  its  own 
standards.  After  man  is  the  Beyond-Man,  who 
may  find  mercy  folly,  who  may  delight  in  things 
that  pain  our  feeble  spirits.  We  have  to  obey 
the  Process  in  our  own  place  and  our  own  time. 
That  is  how  I  see  things.  That  is  the  stark 
truth  of  the  universe  looked  at  plainly  and 
hard. ' ' 

The  lips  of  Mr.  Dad  repeated  noiselessly: 
**  plainly  and  hard.''  But  he  felt  very  un- 
certain. 

For  some  moments  the  doctor  sat  with  his 
forearms  resting  on  the  table  as  if  he  had  done. 
Then  he  resumed. 

**  I  gather  that  this  talk  here  to-day  arose 
out  of  a  discussion  about  education." 

*^  You'd  hardly  believe  it,"  said  Mr.  Dad. 

But  Dr.  Barrack's  next  remark  checked  Mr. 
Dad's  growing  approval.  ^^  That  seems  per- 
fectly logical  to  me.  It's  one  of  the  things  I 
can  never  understand  about  schoolmasters  and 
politicians  and  suchlike,  the  wa}^  they  seem  to 
take  it  for  granted  you  can  educate  and  not 
bring  in  religion  and  socialism  and  all  your  be- 
liefs. What  is  education?  Teaching  young 
people  to  talk  and  read  and  write  and  calculate 
in  order  that  they  may  be  told  how  they  stand 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  143 

in  the  world  and  what  we  think  we  and  the 
world  generally  are  up  to,  and  the  part  we 
expect  them  to  play  in  the  game.  Well,  how 
can  we  do  that  and  at  the  same  time  leave  it  all 
out?  What  is  the  game?  That  is  what  every \ 
youngster  wants  to  know.  Answering  him,  is  | 
education.  Either  we  are  going  to  say  what  we  / 
think  the  game  is  plainly  and  straightforwardly,  / 
or  else  we  are  going  to  make  motions  as  though 
we  were  educating  when  we  are  really  doing 
nothing  of  the  kind.  In  which  case  the  stupid 
ones  will  grow  up  with  their  heads  all  in  a 
muddle  and  be  led  by  any  old  catchword  any- 
w^here  according  to  luck,  and  the  clever  ones 
will  grow  up  with  the  idea  that  life  is  a  sort  of 
empty  swindle.  Most  educated  people  in  this 
country  believe  it  is  a  sham  and  a  swindle.  They 
flounder  about  and  never  get  up  against  a 
reality.  .  .  .  It's  amazing  how  people  can  lose 
their  grip  on  reality  —  how  most  people  have. 
The  way  my  patients  come  along  to  me  and  tell 
me  lies  —  even  about  their  stomach-aches.  The 
idea  of  anything  being  direct  and  reasonable  has 
gone  clean  out  of  their  heads.  They  think  they 
can  fool  me  about  the  facts,  and  that  when  I'm 
properly  fooled,  I  shall  then  humbug  their 
stomachs  into  not  aching  —  somehow.  ,  .  . 
^  ^  Now  my  gospel  is  this :  —  face  facts.    Take 


144  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

the  world  as  it  is  and  take  yourself  as  you  are. 
And  the  fundamental  fact  we  all  have  to  face  is 
this,  that  this  Process  takes  no  account  of  our 
desires  or  fears  or  moral  ideas  or  anything  of 
the  sort.  It  puts  us  up,  it  tries  us  over,  and  if 
we  don't  stand  the  tests  it  knocks  us  down  and 
ends  us.  That  may  not  be  right  as  you  test  it 
by  your  little  human  standards,  but  it  is  right  by 
the  atoms  and  the  stars.  Then  what  must  a 
proper  Education  be?  '' 

Dr.  Barrack  paused.  **  Tell  them  what  the 
world  is,  tell  them  every  rule  and  trick  of  the 
game  mankind  has  learnt,  and  tell  them  '  Be 
yourselves.^  Be  yourselves  up  to  the  hilt.  It 
is  no  good  being  anything  but  your  essential 
self  because — " 

Dr.  Barrack  spoke  like  one  who  quotes  a 
sacred  formula.  ^^  There  is  no  inheritance  of 
acquired  characteristics.  Your  essential  self, 
your  essential  heredity,  are  on  trial.  Put 
everything  of  yourself  into  the  Process.  If  the 
Process  wants  you  it  will  accept  you;  if  it 
doesn't  you  will  go  under.  You  can't  help  it  — 
either  way.  You  may  be  the  bit  of  marble  that 
is  left  in  the  statue,  or  you  may  be  the  bit 
of  marble  that  is  thrown  away.  You  can't 
help  it.     Be  yourself!  '' 

Dr.  Barrack  had  sat  back ;  he  raised  his  voice 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  145 

at  the  last  words  and  lifted  his  hand  as  if  to 
smite  the  table.  But,  so  good  a  thing  is  pro- 
fessional training,  he  let  his  hand  fall  slowly, 
as  he  remembered  that  Mr.  Huss  was  his 
patient. 


§  2 

Mr.  Huss  did  not  speak  for  some  moments. 
He  was  thinking  so  deeply  that  he  seemed  to  be 
unobservant  of  the  cessation  of  the  doctor's 
discourse. 

Then  he  awoke  to  the  silence  with  a  start. 

^^  You  do  not  differ  among  yourselves  so 
much  as  you  may  think, ' '  he  said  at  last. 

^^  You  all  argue  to  one  end,  however  wide 
apart  your  starting  points  may  be.  You  argue 
that  men  may  lead  fragmentary  lives.   .    .    . 

'*  And,''  he  reflected  further,  *^  submissive 
lives." 

''Not  submissive,"  said  Dr.  Barrack  in  a  kind 
of  footnote.  *** 

''  You  say.  Sir  Eliphaz,  that  this  Universe  is 
in  the  charge  of  Providence,  all-wise  and  ami- 
able. That  He'  guides  this  world  to  ends  we 
cannot  understand;  desirable  ends,  did  we  but 
know  them,  but  incomprehensible ;  that  this  life, 
this  whole  Universe,  is  but  the  starting  point 
for  a  developing  series  of  immortal  lives.  And 
irom  this  you  conclude  that  the  part  a  human 

146 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  147 

being  has  to  play  in  this  scheme  is  the  part  of  a 
trustful  child,  which  need  only  not  pester  the 
Higher  Powers,  which  need  only  do  its  few 
simple  congenial  duties,  to  be  surely  preserved 
and  rewarded  and  carried  on.*' 

^^  There  is  much  in  simple  faith, '*  said  Sir 
Eliphaz ;  *  *  sneer  though  3'ou  may. ' ' 

^'  But  your  view  is  a  grimmer  one,  Dr.  Bar- 
rack; you  say  that  this  Process  is  utterly  be- 
yond knowledge  and  control.  We  cannot  alter 
it  or  appease  it.  It  makes  of  some  of  us  vessels 
of  honour  and  of  others  vessels  of  dishonour. 
It  has  scrawled  our  race  across  the  black  empti- 
ness of  space,  and  it  may  wipe  us  out  again. 
Such  is  the  quality  of  Fate.  We  can  but  follow 
our  lights  and  instincts.  ...  In  the  end,  in 
practical  matters,  your  teaching  marches  with 
the  teaching  of  Sir  Eliphaz.  You  bow  to  the 
thing  that  is ;  he  gladly  and  trustfully  —  with  a 
certain  old-world  courtesy,  you  grimly  —  in  the 
modern  style.   .    .    . '  * 

For  some  moments  Mr.  IIuss  sat  with  com- 
pressed lips,  as  though  he  listened  to  the  pain 
within  him.     Then  he  said:  ^'  I  don't. 

**  I  don't  submit.  I  rebel  —  not  in  my  own 
strength  nor  by  my  own  impulse.  I  rebel  by 
the  spirit  of  God  in  me.  I  rebel  not  merely  to 
make   weak   gestures   of   defiance   against  the 


148  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

black  disorder  and  cruelties  of  space  and  time, 
but  for  master}^  I  am  a  rebel  of  pride  —  I  am 
full  of  the  pride  of  God  in  my  heart.  I  am  the 
servant  of  a  rebellious  and  adventurous  God 
who  may  yet  bring  order  into  this  cruel  and 
frightful  chaos  in  which  we  seem  to  be  driven 
hither  and  thither  like  leaves  before  the  wind, 
a  God  who,  in  spite  of  all  appearances,  may  yet 
rule  over  it  at  last  and  mould  it  to  his  will. ' ' 

^'  What  a  world  it  will  be!  '^  whispered  Mr. 
Farr,  unable  to  restrain  himself  and  yet  half- 
ashamed  of  his  sneer. 

^'  What  a  world  it  is,  Farr!  What  a  cunning 
and  watchful  world!  Does  it  serve  even  you? 
So  insecure  has  it  become  that  opportunity  may 
yet  turn  a  frightful  face  upon  you  —  in  the  very 
moment  as  you  snatch.  .    .    . 

^  ^  But  you  see  how  I  differ  from  you  all.  You 
see  that  the  spirit  of  my  life  and  of  my  teaching 
—  of  my  teaching  —  for  all  its  weaknesses  and 
slips  and  failures,  is  a  fight  against  that  Dark 
Being  of  the  universe  who  seeks  to  crush  us  all. 
Who  broods  over  me  now  even  as  I  talk  to  you. 
...  It  is  a  fight  against  disorder,  a  refusal 
of  that  very  submission  you  have  made,  a  repu- 
diation altogether  of  that  same  voluntary  death 
in  life.   .    .    . ' ' 

He  moistened  his  lips  and  resumed. 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  149 

**  The  end  and  substance  of  all  real  education 
is  to  teach  men  and  women  of  the  Battle  of  God, 
to  teach  them  of  the  beginnings  of  life  upon  this 
lonely  little  planet  amidst  the  endless  stars,  and 
how  those  beginnings  have  unfolded;  to  show 
them  how  man  has  arisen  through  the  long  ages 
from  amidst  the  beasts,  and  the  nature  of  the 
struggle  God  wages  through  him,  and  to  draw 
all  men  together  out  of  themselves  into  one  com- 
mon life  and  effort  with  God.  The  nature  of 
God's  struggle  is  the  essence  of  our  dispute. 
It  is  a  struggle,  ^dth  a  hope  of  victory  but  with 
no  assurance.  You  have  argued.  Sir  Eliphaz, 
that  it  is  an  unreal  struggle,  a  sham  fight,  that 
indeed  all  things  are  perfectly  adjusted  and  for 
our  final  happiness,  and  when  I  have  reminded 
you  a  little  of  the  unmasked  horrors  about  us, 
you  have  shifted  your  ground  of  compensation 
into  another  —  into  an  incredible  —  world. ' ' 

Sir  Eliphaz  sounded  dissent  musically.  Then 
he  waved  his  long  hand  as  Mr.  Huss  paused  and 
regarded  him.  **  But  go  on!  "  he  said.  **  Go 
on!  '' 

*^  And  now  I  come  to  you.  Dr.  Barrack,  and 
your  modern  fatalism.  You  hold  this  universe 
is  uncontrollable  —  anyhow.  And  incompre- 
hensible. For  good  or  ill  —  we  can  be  no  more 
than  our  strenuous  selves.     You  must,  you  say, 


\ 


150  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

be  yourself.  I  answer,  you  must  lose  yourself 
in  something  altogether  greater  —  in  God. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  curious  likeness,  Doctor,  and 
a  curious  difference  in  your  views  and  mine.  I 
think  you  see  the  world  very  much  as  I  see  it, 
but  you  see  it  coldly  like  a  man  before  sunrise, 
and  I  — '  * 

He  paused.  ^*  There  is  a  light  upon  it,"  he 
asserted  with  a  noticeable  flatness  in  his  voice. 
^  ^  There  is  a  light  .    .    .  light  .    .    . '  ^ 

He  became  silent.  For  a  while  it  seemed  as 
if  the  light  he  spoke  of  had  gone  from  him  and 
as  if  the  shadow  had  engulfed  him.  When  he 
spoke  again  it  was  with  an  evident  effort. 

He  turned  to  Dr.  Barrack.  ^^  You  think,"  he 
said,  ^^  that  there  is  a  will  in  this  Process  of 
yours  which  will  take  things  somewhere,  some- 
where definitely  greater  or  better  or  onward. 
I  hold  that  there  is  no  will  at  all  except  in  and 
through  ourselves.  If  there  be  any  will  at  all 
...  I  hold  that  even  your  maxim  ^  be  our- 
selves '  is  a  paradox,  for  we  cannot  be  ourselves 
until  we  have  lost  ourselves  in  God.  I  have 
talked  to  Sir  Eliphaz  and  to  you  since  you  came 
in,  of  the  boundless  disorder  and  evil  of  nature. 
Let  me  talk  to  you  now  of  the  boundless  mis- 
eries that  arise  from  the  disorderliness  of  men 
and  that  must  continue   age   after  age  until 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  151 

either  men  are  united  in  spirit  and  in  truth 
or  destroyed  through  their  own  incoherence. 
Whether  men  will  be  lost  or  saved  I  do  not  know. 
There  have  been  times  when  I  was  sure  that 
God  would  triumph  in  us.  .  .  .  But  dark  shad- 
ows have  fallen  upon  my  spirit.   .    .    . 

^^  Consider  the  posture  of  men^s  affairs  now, 
consider  where  they  stand  to-day,  because  they 
have  not  yet  begun  to  look  deeply  and  frankly 
into  realities ;  because,  as  they  put  it,  they  take 
life  as  they  find  it,  because  they  are  themselves, 
heedless  of  history,  and  do  not  realize  that  in 
truth  they  are  but  parts  in  one  great  adventure 
in  space  and  time.  For  four  years  now  the 
world  has  been  marching  deeper  and  deeper 
into  tragedy.  .  .  .  Our  life  that  seemed  so 
safe  grows  insecure  and  more  and  more  inse- 
cure. .  .  .  Six  million  soldiers,  six  million 
young  men,  have  been  killed  on  the  battlefields 
alone;  three  times  as  many  have  been  crippled 
and  mutilated;  as  many  again  who  were  not 
soldiers  have  been  destroyed.  That  has  been 
only  the  beginning  of  the  disaster  that  has  come 
upon  our  race.  All  human  relationships  have 
been  strained ;  roads,  ships,  harvests  destroyed ; 
and  behind  the  red  swift  tragedy  of  this  warfare 
comes  the  gaunt  and  desolating  face  of  universal 
famine  now,  and  behind  famine  that  inevitable 


152  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

follower  of  famine,  pestilence.  You  gentlemen 
who  have  played  so  useful  a  part  in  supplying 
munitions  of  war,  who  have  every  reason  in 
days  well  spent  and  energies  well  used  to  see  a 
transitory  brightness  upon  these  sombre  things, 
you  may  tell  me  that  I  lack  faith  when  I  say  that 
I  can  see  nothing  to  redeem  the  waste  and  de- 
struction of  the  last  four  years  and  the  still 
greater  waste  and  spiritless  disorder  and  pov- 
erty and  disease  ahead  of  us.  You  will  tell  me 
that  the  world  has  learnt  a  lesson  it  could  learn 
in  no  other  way,  that  we  shall  set  up  a  "World 
League  of  Nations  now  and  put  an  end  to  war. 
But  on  what  will  you  set  up  your  World  League 
of  Nations?  What  foundations  have  you  made 
in  the  last  four  years  but  ruins?  Is  there  any 
common  idea,  any  common  understanding  yet 
in  the  minds  of  men  1  They  are  still  taking  the 
world  as  they  find  it,  they  are  being  their  un- 
mitigated selves  more  than  ever,  and  below  the 
few  who  scramble  for  profits  now  is  a  more  and 
more  wolfish  multitude  scrambling  for  bread. 
There  are  no  common  ideas  in  men's  minds 
upon  which  we  can  build.  How  can  men  be 
united  except  by  common  ideas?  The  schools 
have  failed  the  world.  WTiat  common  thought 
is  there  in  the  world?  A  loud  bawling  of  base 
newspapers,  a  posturing  of  politicians.     You 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  153 

can  see  chaos  coining  again  over  all  the  east  of 
Europe  now,  and  bit  by  bit  western  Europe 
crumbles  and  drops  into  the  confusion.  Art, 
science,  reasoned  thought,  creative  effort,  such 
things  have  ceased  altogether  in  Russia;  they 
may  have  ceased  there  perhaps  for  centuries; 
they  die  now  in  Germany;  the  universities  of 
the  west  are  bloodless  and  drained  of  their 
youth.  That  war  that  seemed  at  first  so  like 
the  dawn  of  a  greater  age  has  ceased  to  matter 
in  the  face  of  this  greater  disaster.  The  French 
and  British  and  Americans  are  beating  back  the 
Germans  from  Paris.  Can  they  beat  them  back 
to  any  distance  ?  Will  not  this  present  counter- 
thrust  diminish  and  fail  as  the  others  have  done  ? 
Which  side  may  first  drop  exhausted  now,  will 
hardly  change  the  supreme  fact.  The  supreme 
fact  is  exhaustion  —  exhaustion,  mental  as  well 
as  material,  failure  to  grasp  and  comprehend, 
cessation  even  of  attempts  to  grasp  and  com- 
prehend,  slackening  of   every   sort   of  effort. 

**  What^s  the  good  of  such  despair?  ^^  said 
Mr.  Dad. 

'^  I  do  not  despair.  No.  But  what  is  the 
good  of  lying  about  hope  and  success  in  the 
midst  of  failure  and  gathering  disaster!  Wliat 
is  the  good  of  saying  that  mankind  wins  —  auto- 


154  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

matically  —  against  the  spirit  of  evil,  when 
mankind  is  visibly  losing  point  after  point,  is 
visibly  losing  heart?  What  is  the  good  of  pre- 
tending that  there  is  order  and  benevolence  or 
some  sort  of  splendid  and  incomprehensible 
process  in  this  festering  waste,  this  windy  deso- 
lation of  tremendous  things  ?  There  is  no  reason 
anywhere,  there  is  no  creation  anywhere,  except 
the  undying^  fire,  the  spirit  of  God  in  the  hearts 
of  menL_ .  .  .  which  may  fail  .  .  .  which  may 
fail  .    .    .  which  seems  to  me  to  fail. ' ' 


§3 

He  paused.     Dr.  Barrack  cleared  his  throat, 

^'  I  don't  want  to  seem  obdurate/'  said  Dr. 
Barrack.  ''  I  want  to  respect  deep  feeling. 
One  must  respect  deep  feeling.  .  .  .  But  for 
the  life  of  me  I  can't  put  much  meaning  into 
this  phrase,  the  spirit  of  God  in  the  hearts  of 
men.  It's  rather  against  my  habits  to  worry  a 
patient,  but  this  is  so  interesting  —  this  is  an 
exceptional  occasion.  I  would  like  to  ask  you, 
Mr.  Huss  —  frankly  —  is  there  anything  very 
much  more  to  it,  than  a  phrase?  " 

There  was  no  answer. 

''  Words,"  said  Mr.  Dad;  ''  joost  words.  If 
Mr.  Huss  had  ever  spent  three  months  of  war 
time  running  a  big  engineering  factory — " 

*^  My  mind  is  a  sceptical  mind,"  Dr.  Barrack 
went  on,  after  staring  a  moment  to  see  if  Mr. 
Dad  meant  to  finish  his  sentence.  ''  I  want 
things  I  can  feel  and  handle.  I  am  an  Agnostic 
by  nature  and  habit  and  profession.  A  Doubt- 
ing Thomas,  born  and  bred.  Well,  I  take  it 
that  about  the  universe  Mr.  Huss  is  very  much 

155 


156  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

of  an  Agnostic  too.  More  so.  He  doubts  more 
than  I  do.  He  doubts  whether  there  is  any  trace 
of  plan  or  purpose  in  it.  What  I  call  a  Process, 
he  calls  a  windy  desolation.  He  sees  Chaos  still 
waiting  for  a  creator.  But  then  he  sets  up 
against  that  this  undying  fire  of  his,  this  spirit 
of  God,  which  is  lit  in  him  and  only  waiting  to 
be  lighted  in  us,  a  sort  of  insurgent  apprentice 
creator.     Well — '' 

The  doctor  frowned  and  meditated  on  his 
words. 

^^  I  want  more  of  the  practical  outcome  of 
this  fire.  I  admit  a  certain  poetry  in  the  idea, 
but  I  am  a  plain  and  practical  man.  Give  me 
something  to  know  this  fire  by  and  to  recognize 
it  again  when  I  see  it.  I  won 't  ask  why  '  undy- 
ing.'  I  won't  quibble  about  that.  But  what 
does  this  undying  fire  mean  in  actual  things  and 
our  daily  life?  In  some  way  it  is  mixed  up  with 
teaching  history  in  schools. '^  A  faint  note  of 
derision  made  him  glance  at  the  face  to  his 
right.  ^'  That  doesn't  strike  me  as  being  so 
queer  as  it  seems  to  strike  Mr.  Farr.  It  inter- 
ests me.  There  is  a  cause  for  it.  But  I  think 
there  are  several  links  Mr.  Huss  hasn't  shown 
and  several  vital  points  he  still  has  to  explain. 
This  undying  fire  is  something  that  is  burning 
in  Mr.  Huss,  and  I  gather  from  his  pretty  broad 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  157 

hints  it  ought,  he  thinks,  to  be  burning  in  me  — 
and  you,  gentlemen.  It  is  something  that  makes 
us  forget  our  little  personal  differences,  makes 
us  forget  ourselves,  and  brings  us  all  into  line 
against  —  what.  That 's  my  first  point ;  — 
against  what?  I  don't  see  the  force  and  value 
of  this  line-up.  /  think  we  struggle  against  one 
another  by  nature  and  necessity ;  that  we  polish 
one  another  in  the  struggle  and  sharpen  our 
edges.  I  thinly  that  out  of  this  struggle  for  ex- 
istence come  better  things  and  better.  They 
may  not  be  better  things  by  our  standards  now, 
but  by  the  standards  of  the  Process,  they  are. 
Sometimes  the  mills  of  the  Process  may  seem 
overpoweringly  grim  and  high  and  pitiless ;  that 
is  a  question  of  scale.  But  Mr.  Huss  does  not 
believe  in  the  struggle.  He  wants  to  take  men 's 
minds  and  teach  them  so  that  they  will  not 
struggle  against  each  other  but  live  and  work 
all  together.  For  what?  That  is  my  second 
point;  —  for  what?  There  is  a  rationality  in 
my  idea  of  an  everlasting  struggle  making  inces- 
santly for  betterment,  such  an  idea  does  at  any 
rate  give  a  direction  and  take  us  somewhere; 
but  there  is  no  rationality  in  declaring  we  are 
still  fighting  and  fighting  more  than  ever,  while 
in  effect  we  are  arranging  to  stop  that  struggle 
which  carries  life  on  —  if  we  can  —  if  we  can. 


158  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

That  is  the  paradox  of  Mr.  Huss.  When  there 
is  neither  competition  at  home  nor  war  abroad, 
when  the  cat  and  the  bird  have  come  to  a  satis- 
factory understanding,  when  the  spirit  of  his 
human  God  rules  even  in  the  jungle  and  the  sea, 
then  where  shall  we  be  heading?  Time  "will  be 
still  unfolding.  But  man  will  have  halted.  If 
he  has  ceased  to  compete  individually  he  will 
have  halted.  Mr.  Huss  looks  at  me  as  if  he 
thought  I  wronged  him  in  saying  that.  "Well, 
then  he  must  answer  my  questions;  what  will 
the  Human  God  be  leading  us  against,  and  what 
shall  we  be  living  for?  " 


'^  Let  me  tell  you  first  what  the  spirit  of  God 
struggles  against/'  said  Mr.  Huss. 

''  I  will  not  dispute  that  this  Process  of  yours 
has  made  good  things;  all  the  good  things  in 
man  it  has  made  as  well  as  all  the  evil.  It  has 
made  them  indifferently.  In  us  —  in  some  of 
us  —  it  has  made  the  will  to  seize  upon  that 
chance-born  good  and  separate  it  from  the 
chance-born  evil.  The  spirit  of  God  rises  out 
of  your  process  as  if  he  were  a  part  of  your 
process.  .  .  .  Except  for  him,  the  good  and 
evil  are  inextricably  mixed;  good  things  flower 
into  evil  things  and  evil  things  wholly  or  par- 
tially^ redeem  themselves  by  good  consequences. 
^  Good  '  and  ^  evil  '  have  meaning  only  for  us. 
The  Process  is  indifferent ;  it  makes,  it  destroys, 
it  favours,  it  torments.  On  its  own  account  it 
preserves  nothing  and  continues  nothing.  It  is 
just  careless.  But  for  us  it  has  made  oppor- 
tunity. Life  is  opportunity.  Unless  we  do  now 
ourselves  seize  hold  upon  life  and  the  Process 
while  we  are  in  it,  the  Process,  becoming  uncon- 

159 


160  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

t reliable  again,  will  presently  sweep  ns  alto- 
gether away.  In  the  back  of  your  mind,  doctor, 
is  the  belief  in  a  happy  ending  just  as  much  as 
in  the  mind  of  Sir  Eliphaz.  I  see  deeper  be- 
cause I  am  not  blinded  by  health.  You  think 
that  beyond  man  comes  some  sort  of  splendid 
super-man.  A  healthy  delusion!  There  is 
nothing  beyond  man  unless  men  will  that  some- 
thing shall  be.  We  shall  be  wiped  out  as  care- 
lessly as  we  have  been  made,  and  something  else 
will  come,  as  disconnected  and  aimless,  some- 
thing neither  necessarily  better  nor  necessarily 
worse  but  something  different,  to  be  wiped  out 
in  its  turn.  Unless  the  spirit  of  God  that  moves 
in  us  can  rouse  us  to  seize  this  universe  for  Him 
and  ourselves,  that  is  the  nature  of  your  Pro- 
cess. Your  Process  is  just  Chaos;  man  is  the 
opportunity,  the  passing  opportunity  for  order 
in  the  waste. 

**  People  write  and  talk  as  if  this  great  war 
which  is  now  wrecking  the  world,  was  a  dra- 
matic and  consecutive  thing.  They  talk  of  it 
as  a  purge,  as  a  great  lesson,  as  a  phase  in  his- 
tory that  marks  the  end  of  wars  and  divisions. 
So  it  might  be ;  but  is  it  so  and  will  it  be  so  ?  I 
asked  you  a  little  time  ago  to  look  straightly  at 
the  realities  of  animal  life,  of  life  in  general  as 
we  know  it.     I  think  I  did  a  little  persuade  you 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  161 

to  my  own  sense  of  shallo^^mess  of  our  assump- 
tion that  there  is  any  natural  happiness.  The 
poor  beasts  and  creatures  have  to  suffer.  I  ask 
you  now  to  look  as  straightly  at  the  things  that 
men  have  done  and  endured  in  this  war.  It  is 
plain  that  they  have  shown  extraordinary  fer- 
tility and  ingenuity  in  the  inventions  they  have 
used  and  an  amazing  capacity  for  sacrifice  and 
courage;  but  it  is,  I  argue,  equally  plain  that 
the  pains  and  agonies  they  have  undergone  have 
taught  the  race  little  or  nothing,  and  that  their 
devices  have  been  mainly  for  their  own  destruc- 
tion. The  only  lesson  and  the  only  betterment 
that  can  come  out  of  this  war  mil  come  if  men, 
inspired  by  the  Divine  courage,  say  '  This  and 
all  such  things  must  end.'  .  .  .  But  I  do  not 
perceive  them  saying  that.  On  the  other  handV 
I  do  perceive  a  great  amount  of  human  energy 
and  ability  that  has  been  devoted  and  is  still 
being  devoted  to  things  that  lead  straight  to 
futility  and  extinction. 

*'  The  most  desolating  thing  about  this  war  is 
neither  the  stupidity  nor  the  cruelty  of  it,  but 
the  streak  of  perversion  that  has  run  through  it. 
Against  the  meagreness  of  the  intelligence  that 
made  the  war,  against  the  absolute  inability  of 
the  good  forces  in  life  to  arrest  it  and  end  it,  I 
ask  you  to  balance  the  intelligence  and  devotion 

M 


162  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

that  has  gone  to  such  an  enterprise  as  the  offen- 
sive use  of  poison  gas.  Consider  the  ingenuity 
and  the  elaboration  of  that;  the  different  sorts 
of  shell  used,  the  beautifully  finished  devices  to 
delay  the  release  of  the  jDoison  so  as  to  catch 
men  unawares  after  their  gas  masks  are  re- 
moved. One  method  much  in  favour  with  the 
Germans  now  involves  the  use  of  two  sorts  of 
gas.  They  have  a  gas  now  not  very  deadly  but 
so  subtle  that  it  penetrates  the  gas  masks  and 
produces  nausea  and  retching.  The  man  is 
overcome  by  the  dread  of  being  sick  so  that  he 
will  clog  his  mask  and  suffocate,  and  he  snatches 
off  his  protection  in  an  ungovernable  physical 
panic.  Then  the  second  gas,  of  the  coarser, 
more  deadly  type,  comes  into  play.  That  he 
breathes  in  fully.  His  breath  catches;  he  real- 
izes what  he  has  done  but  it  is  too  late;  death 
has  him  by  the  throat;  he  passes  through  hor- 
rible discomfort  and  torment  to  the  end.  You 
cough,  you  stagger,  you  writhe  upon  the  ground 
and  are  deadly  sick.  .  .  .  You  die  heaving  and 
panting,  with  staring  eyes.  ...  So  it  is  men 
are  being  killed  now ;  it  is  but  one  of  a  multitude 
of  methods,  disgusting,  undignified,  and  mon- 
strous, but  intelligent,  technically  admirable. 
.  .  .  You  cannot  deny,  Doctor  Barrack,  that 
this  ingenious  mixture  is  one  of  the  last  fruits 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  163 

of  your  Process.  To  that  your  Process  has  at 
last  brought  men  from  the  hoeing  and  herding 
of  Neolithic  days. 

**  Now  tell  me  how  is  the  onward  progress  of 
mankind  to  anything,  anywhere,  secured  by  this 
fine  flower  of  the  Process  I  Intellectual  energy, 
industrial  energy,  are  used  up  without  stint  to 
make  this  horror  possible ;  multitudes  of  brave 
young  men  are  spoilt  or  killed.  Is  there  any 
selection  in  it?  Along  such  lines  can  you 
imagine  men  or  life  or  the  universe  getting  any- 
where at  all? 

Why  do  they  do  such  things? 
They  do  not  do  it  out  of  a  complete  and 
organized  impulse  to  evil.  If  you  took  the 
series  of  researches  and  inventions  that  led  at 
last  to  this  use  of  poison  gas,  you  would  find 
they  were  the  work  of  a  multitude  of  mainly 
amiable,  fairly  virtuous,  and  kindly-meaning 
men.  Each  one  was  doing  his  hit,  as  Mr.  Dad 
would  say ;  each  one,  to  use  your  phrase,  doctor, 
was  being  himself  and  utilizing  the  gift  that  was 
in  him  in  accordance  with  the  drift  of  the  world 
about  him ;  each  one.  Sir  Eliphaz,  was  modestly 
taking  the  world  as  he  found  it.  They  were 
living  in  an  uninformed  world  with  no  common 
understanding  and  no  collective  plan,  a  world 
ignorant  of  its  true  history  and  with  no  concep- 


<< 

a 


164  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

tion  of  its  future.  Into  these  horrors  they 
drifted  for  the  want  of  a  world  education.  Out 
of  these  horrors  no  lesson  will  be  learnt,  no  will 
can  arise,  for  the  same  reason.  Every  man 
lives  ignorantly  in  his  own  circumstances,  from 
hand  to  mouth,  from  day  to  day,  swayed  first 
of  all  by  this  catchword  and  then  by  that. 

*  ^  Let  me  take  another  instance  of  the  way  in 
which  human  ability  and  energy  if  they  are  left 
to  themselves,  without  co-ordination,  without  a 
common  basis  of  purpose,  without  a  God,  will 
run  into  cul-de-sacs  of  mere  horribleness ;  let 
me  remind  you  a  little  of  what  the  submarine  is 
and  what  it  signifies.  In  this  country  we  think 
of  the  submarine  as  an  instrument  of  murder; 
but  we  think  of  it  as  something  ingeniously  con- 
trived and  at  any  rate  not  tormenting  and 
destroying  the  hands  that  guide  it.  I  will  not 
recall  to  you  the  stories  that  fill  our  newspapers 
of  men  drowning  in  the  night,  of  crowded  boat- 
loads of  sailors  and  passengers  shelled  and 
sunken,  of  men  forced  to  clamber  out  of  the  sea 
upon  the  destroying  U-boat  and  robbed  of  their 
lifebelts  in  order  that  when  it  submerged  they 
should  be  more  surely  drowned.  I  want  you  to 
think  of  the  submarine  in  itself.  There  is  a  kind 
of  crazy  belief  that  killing,  however  cruel,  has 
a  kind  of  justification  in  the  survival  of  the 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  165 

killer ;  we  make  that  our  excuse  for  instance  for 
the  destruction  of  the  native  Tasmanians  who 
were  shot  whenever  they  were  seen,  and  killed 
by  poisoned  meat  left  in  their  paths.  But  the 
marvel  of  these  submarines  is  that  they  also 
torture  and  kill  their  o^vn  crews.  They  are 
miracles  of  short-sighted  ingenuity  for  the  com- 
mon unprofitable  reasonless  destruction  of  Ger- 
mans and  their  enemies.  They  are  almost 
quintessential  examples  of  the  elaborate  futility 
and  horror  into  which  partial  ideas  about  life, 
combative  and  competitive  ideas  of  life,  thrust 
mankind. 

*  ^  Take  some  poor  German  boy  mth  an  ordi- 
nary sort  of  intelligence,  an  ordinary  human 
disposition  to  kindliness,  and  some  gallantry, 
who  becomes  finally  a  sailor  in  one  of  these  craft. 
Consider  his  case  and  what  we  do  to  him.  You 
will  find  in  him  a  sample  of  what  we  are  doing 
for  manldnd.  As  a  child  he  is  ingenuous,  teach- 
able, plastic.  He  is  also  egotistical,  greedy,  and 
suspicious.  He  is  easily  led  and  easily  fright- 
ened. He  likes  making  things  if  he  knows  how 
to  make  them;  he  is  capable  of  affection  and 
capable  of  resentment.  He  is  a  sheet  of  white 
paper  upon  which  anything  may  be  written. 
His  parents  teach  him,  his  companions,  his 
school.    Do  they  teach  him  anything  of  the  great 


166  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

history  of  mankind?  Do  they  teach  him  of  his 
blood  brotherhood  with  all  men!  Do  they  tell 
him  anything  of  discovery,  of  exploration,  of 
human  effort  and  achievement?  No.  They  teach 
him  that  he  belongs  to  a  blonde  and  wonderful 
race,  the  only  race  that  matters  on  this  planet. 
(No  such  distinct  race  ever  existed;  it  is  a  lie 
for  the  damning  of  men.)  And  these  teachers 
incite  him  to  suspicion  and  hatred  and  contempt 
of  all  other  races.  They  fill  his  mind  with  fears 
and  hostilities.  Everything  German  they  tell 
him  is  good  and  splendid.  Everything  not  Ger- 
man is  dangerous  and  wicked.  They  take  that 
poor  actor  of  an  emperor  at  Potsdam  and  glo- 
rify him  until  he  shines  upon  this  lad's  mind 
like  a  star.   .    .    . 

'^  The  boy  grows  up  a  mental  cripple;  his 
capacity  for  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  is  run 
into  a  mould  of  fanatical  loyalty  for  the  Kaiser 
and  hatred  for  foreign  things.  Comes  this  war, 
and  the  youngster  is  only  too  eager  to  give  him- 
self where  he  is  most  needed.  He  is  told  that 
the  submarine  war  is  the  sure  way  of  striking 
the  enemies  of  his  country  a  conclusive  blow. 
To  be  in  a  submarine  is  to  be  at  the  spear  point. 
He  dare  scarcely  hope  that  he  will  be  accepted 
for  this  vital  service;  to  which  princes  might 
aspire.  But  he  is  fortunate;  he  is.  He  trains 
for  a  submarine.  .    .    . 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  167 

^^  I  do  not  know  how  far  you  gentlemen  re- 
member your  youth.  A  schoohnaster  perhaps 
remembers  more  of  his  early  adolescence  than 
other  men  because  he  is  being  continually  re- 
minded of  it.  But  it  is  a  time  of  very  fine 
emotions,  boundless  ambitions,  a  newly  awak- 
ened and  eager  sense  of  beauty.  This  young- 
ster sees  himself  as  a  hero,  fighting  for  his  half- 
divine  Kaiser,  for  dear  Germany,  against  the 
cold  and  evil  barbarians  who  resist  and  would 
destroy  her.  He  passes  through  his  drill  and 
training.  He  goes  down  into  a  submarine  for 
the  first  time,  clambers  down  the  narrow  hatch- 
way. It  is  a  little  cold,  but  wonderful;  a  mar- 
vellous machine.  How  can  such  a  nest  of  in- 
ventions, ingenuities,  beautiful  metal-work, 
wonderful  craftsmanship,  be  anything  but 
right?  His  mind  is  full  of  dreams  of  proud 
enemy  battleships  smitten  and  heeling  over  into 
the  waters,  while  he  watches  his  handiwork  with 
a  stern  pride,  a  restrained  exultation,  a  sense  of 
Germany  vindicated.   ... 

^^  That  is  how  his  mind  has  been  made  for 
him.  That  is  the  sort  of  mind  that  has  been 
made  and  is  being  made  in  boys  all  over  the 
world.  .  .  .  Because  there  is  no  common  plan 
in  the  world,  because  each  person  in  the  making 
of  this  boy,  just  as  each  person  in  the  making 


168  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

of  the  submarine,  had  ^  been  himself  '  and  *  done 
his  bit, '  followed  his  own  impulses  and  interests 
without  regard  to  the  whole,  regardless  of  any 
plan  or  purpose  in  human  affairs,  ignorant  of 
the  spirit  of  God  who  would  unify  us  and  lead 
us  to  a  common  use  for  all  our  gifts  and 
energies. 

^*  Let  me  go  on  with  the  story  of  this 
youngster.   .    .    . 

**  Comes  a  day  when  he  realizes  the  reality 
of  the  work  he  is  doing  for  his  kind.  He  stands 
by  one  of  the  guns  of  the  submarine  in  an  attack 
upon  some  wretched  ocean  tramp.  He  realizes 
that  the  war  he  wages  is  no  heroic  attack  on 
pride  or  predominance,  but  a  mere  murdering 
of  traffic.  He  sees  the  little  ship  shelled,  the 
wretched  men  killed  and  wounded,  no  tyrants  of 
the  seas  but  sailor-men  like  himself;  he  sees 
their  boats  smashed  to  pieces.  Mostly  such 
sinkings  are  done  at  da^vn  or  sundown,  under  a 
level  light  which  displays  a  world  of  black  lines 
and  black  silhouettes  asway  with  the  slow  heav- 
ing and  falling  of  coldly  shining  water.  These 
little  black  things,  he  realizes  incredulously,  that 
struggle  and  disappear  amidst  the  wreckage  are 
the  heads  of  men,  brothers  to  himself.   .    .    . 

<<  For  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  who  have 
come  into  this  war  expecting  bright  and  roman- 


ELIHU   REPROVES   JOB  169 

tic  and  tremendous  experiences  their  first  kill- 
ing must  have  been  a  hideous  disillusionment. 
For  none  so  much  as  for  the  men  of  the  sub- 
marines. All  that  sense  of  being  right  and  fine 
that  carries  men  into  battle,  that  carries  most 
of  us  through  the  world,  must  have  vanished 
completely  at  this  first  vision  of  reality.  Our 
man  must  have  asked  himself,  ^  What  am  I 
domg?^     .    .    . 

**  In  the  night  he  must  have  lain  awake  and 
stared  at  that  question  in  horrible  doubt.   .    .    . 

**  We  scold  too  much  at  the  German  subma- 
rine crews  in  this  country.  Most  of  us  in  their 
places  would  be  impelled  to  go  on  as  they  go  on. 
The  work  they  do  has  been  reached  step  by  step, 
logically,  inevitably,  because  our  world  has  been 
content  to  drift  along  on  false  premises  and  hap- 
hazard assumptions  about  nationality  and  race  , 
and  the  order  of  things.  These  things  have  / 
happened  because  the  technical  education  of  men 
has  been  better  than  their  historical  and  social 
education.  Once  men  have  lost  touch  with,  or 
failed  to  apprehend  that  idea  of  a  single  human 
community,  that  idea  which  is  the  substance  of 
all  true  history  and  the  essential  teaching  of 
God,  it  is  towards  such  organized  abominations 
as  these  that  they  drift  —  necessarily.  People 
in  this  country  who  are  just  as  incoherent  in 


170  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

their  minds,  just  as  likely  to  drift  into  some  kin- 
dred cul-de-sac  of  conduct,  would  have  these  U- 
boat  men  tortured  —  to  show  the  superiority  of 
their  own  moral  standards. 

*^  But  indeed  these  men  are  tortured.   .    .    . 

^^  Bear  yet  a  little  longer  with  this  boy  of 
mine  in  the  U-boat.  IVe  tried  to  suggest  him 
to  you  with  his  conscience  scared  —  at  a  moment 
when  his  submarine  had  made  a  kill.  But  those 
moments  are  rare.  For  most  of  its  time  the 
U-boat  is  under  water  and  a  hunted  thing.  The 
surface  swarms  with  hostile  craft;  sea-planes 
and  observation  balloons  are  seeking  it.  Every 
time  a  U-boat  comes  even  near  to  the  surface  it 
may  be  spotted  by  a  sea-plane  and  destruction 
may  fall  upon  it.  Even  when  it  is  submerged 
below  the  limits  of  visibility  in  the  turbid  North 
Sea  waters,  the  noise  of  its  engines  ^vill  betray 
it  to  a  listening  apparatus  and  a  happy  guess 
with  a  depth  charge  may  end  its  career.  I  want 
you  to  think  of  the  daily  life  of  this  youngster 
under  these  conditions.  I  want  you  to  see  ex- 
actly where  wrong  ideas,  not  his,  but  wrong 
ideas  ruling  in  the  world  about  him,  are  driving 
him. 

^ '  The  method  of  detection  by  listening  appa- 
ratus improves  steadily,  and  nowadays  our 
destroyers  will  follow  up  a  U-boat  sometimes 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  171 

for  sixty  or  seventy  hours,  following  her  sounds 
as  a  hound  follows  the  scent  of  its  quarry.  At 
last,  if  the  U-boat  cannot  shake  off  her  pursuers 
she  must  come  to  the  surface  and  fight  or  sur- 
render. That  is  the  strangest  game  of  Blind- 
Man  that  ever  human  beings  played.  The  U- 
boat  doubles  and  turns,  listening  also  for  the 
sounds  of  the  pursuers  at  the  surface.  Are 
they  coming  nearer?  Are  they  getting  fainter? 
Unless  a  helpful  mud-bank  is  available  for  it  to 
lie  up  in  silence  for  a  time,  the  U-boat  must 
keep  moving  and  using  up  electrical  force,  so 
that  ultimately  it  must  come  to  the  surface  to 
recharge  its  batteries.  As  far  as  possible  the 
crew  of  the  U-boat  are  kept  in  ignorance  of  the 
chase  in  progress.  They  get  hints  from  the 
anxiety  or  irritation  of  the  commander,  or  from 
the  haste  and  variety  of  his  orders.  Something 
is  going  on  —  they  do  not  know  quite  what  — 
something  that  may  end  disagreeably.  If  the 
pursuer  tries  a  depth  charge,  then  they  know  for 
certain  from  the  concussion  that  the  hand  of 
death  is  feeling  for  them  in  the  darkness.  .  .  . 
^^  Always  the  dread  of  a  depth  charge  must 
haunt  the  imagination  of  the  U-boat  sailor. 
Without  notice,  at  any  hour,  may  come  thud  and 
concussion  to  warn  him  that  the  destroying  pow- 
ers are  on  his  track.     The  fragile  ship  jumps 


172  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

and  quivers  from  end  to  end;  the  men  are 
thrown  about.  That  happens  to  our  youngster. 
He  curses  the  damned  English.  And  if  you 
think  it  over,  what  else  can  you  expect  him  to 
curse  1  A  little  nearer  and  the  rivets  will  start 
and  actual  leakage  begin,  letting  in  a  pressure 
of  several  atmospheres.  Yet  a  little  nearer 
and  the  water  will  come  pressing  in  through 
cracks  and  breaches  at  a  score  of  points,  the 
air  will  be  compressed  in  his  lungs,  the  long 
death  struggle  of  the  U-boat  will  begin,  and 
after  some  hours  of  hopeless  suffering  he  will 
suffocate  and  drown  like  a  rat  in  a  flooded 
tunnel.   .    .    . 

^^  Think  of  the  life  of  endless  apprehension 
in  that  confined  space  below  the  waters.  The 
air  is  almost  always  stuffy  and  sometimes  it  is 
poisonous.  All  sorts  of  evil  chances  may  occur 
in  this  crowded  tinful  of  machinery  to  release 
oppressive  gases  and  evil  odours.  A  whiff  of 
chlorine  for  instance  may  warn  the  crew  of 
flooded  accumulators.  At  the  first  sting  of 
chlorine  the  U-boat  must  come  up  at  any  risk. 
.  .  .  And  nothing  can  be  kept  dry.  The 
surfaces  of  the  apparatus  and  the  furniture 
sweat  continually;  except  where  the  machinery 
radiates  a  certain  heat  a  clammy  chill  pervades 
the  whole  contrivance.    Have  you  ever  seen  the 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  173 

thick  blubber  of  a  whale  f  Only  by  means  of 
that  enormous  layer  of  non-conductor  can  a 
whale  keep  its  body  warm  in  spite  of  the  waters 
about  it.  A  U-boat  cannot  afford  any  layer  of 
blubber.  It  is  at  the  temperature  of  the  dark 
under-waters.  And  this  life  of  cold,  fear,  suf- 
focation, headache  and  nausea  is  not  sustained 
by  hot  and  nourishing  food.  There  is  no  blaz- 
ing galley  fire  for  the  cook  of  the  U-boat. 

'^  The  U-boat  rolls  very  easily;  she  is,  of 
course,  no  heavier  nor  lighter  than  the  water  in 
which  she  floats,  and  if  by  chance  she  touches 
bottom  in  shallow  water,  she  bounds  about  like 
a  rubber  ball  on  a  pavement.  Inside  the  sailors 
are  thrown  about  and  dashed  against  the 
machinery. 

*^  That  is  the  quality  of  everyday  life  in  a 
U-boat  retained  below  the  surface.  Now  think 
what  an  emergence  involves.  Up  she  comes 
until  the  periscope  can  scrutinize  the  sky  and 
the  nearer  sea.  Nothing  in  sight  ?  Thank  God ! 
She  rises  out  of  the  water  and  some  of  the  sail- 
ors get  a  breath  of  fresh  air.  Not  all,  for  there 
is  no  room  nor  time  for  all  of  them  to  come  out. 
But  the  fortunate  ones  who  get  to  the  hatches 
may  even  have  the  luck  of  sunshine.  To  come 
to  the  surface  on  a  calm  open  sea  away  from 
any  traffic  at  al]  is  the  secret  hope  of  every 


174  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

U-boat  sailor.  But  suppose  now  there  is  some- 
thing in  sight.  Then  the  U-boat  must  come  up 
with  infinite  discretion  and  examine  the  quarry. 
It  looks  an  innocent  craft,  a  liner,  a  trawler,  a 
cargo-boat.  But  is  that  innocence  certain? 
How  does  the  U-boat  man  know  that  she  hasn  't 
a  gun?  What  new  contrivance  of  the  hunter 
may  not  hide  behind  that  harmless-looking 
mask?  Until  they  have  put  a  ship  down,  the 
U-boat  sailors  never  know  what  ugly  surprise 
she  may  not  have  in  store  for  them.  When 
they  approach  a  vessel  they  must  needs  be  igno- 
rant of  what  counter-attack  creeps  upon  them 
from  her  unseen  other  side.  As  a  consequence 
these  men  are  in  terror  of  every  ship  they  hail. 

*^  Is  it  any  wonder  then  if  their  behaviour  is 
hasty  and  hysterical,  if  they  curse  and  insult 
the  wretched  people  they  are  proposing  to 
drown,  if  they  fire  upon  them  unexpectedly  and 
do  strange  and  abominable  things  ?  The  U-boat 
man  is  no  fine  captain  on  his  quarter  deck.  He 
is  a  man  who  lives  a  life  of  intense  physical 
hardship  and  extreme  fear,  who  faces  over- 
whelming risks,  in  order  to  commit  as  inglorious 
a  crime  as  any  man  can  commit.  He  is  a  man 
already  in  hell. 

^^  The  Germans  do  what  they  can  to  keep  up 
the  spirit  of  these  crews.     An  English  captain 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  175 

who  spent  a  fortnight  upon  one  as  a  prisoner 
and  who  was  recently  released  by  way  of  Switz- 
erland, says  that  when  they  had  sunk  a  merchant 
ship  ^  they  played  victory  music  on  the  gramo- 
phone. ^    Imagine  that  bleak  festival ! 

^^  The  inevitable  end  of  the  U-boat  sailor, 
unless  he  is  lucky  enough  to  get  captured,  is 
death,  and  a  very  horrible  and  slow  death  in- 
deed. Sooner  or  later  it  is  bound  to  come. 
Some  never  return  from  their  first  voyage. 
There  is  a  brief  spree  ashore  if  they  do;  then 
out  they  go  again.  Perhaps  they  return  a  sec- 
ond time,  perhaps  not.  Some  may  even  have 
made  a  score  of  voyages,  but  sooner  or  later 
they  are  caught.  The  average  life  of  a  U-boat 
is  less  than  five  voyages  —  out  and  home.  Of 
the  crews  of  the  original  U-boats  which  began 
the  U-boat  campaign  very  few  men  survive 
to-day.  When  our  young  hopeful  left  his  home 
in  Germany  to  join  the  U-boat  service,  he  left 
it  for  a  certain  death.  He  learns  that  slowly 
from  the  conversation  of  his  mates.  Men  are 
so  scarce  now  for  this  vile  work  that  once  Ger- 
many has  got  a  man  she  will  use  him  to  the  end. 

''  And  that  end—  ? 

**  I  was  given  some  particulars  of  the  fate  of 
one  U-boat  that  were  told  by  two  prisoners  who 
died  at  Harwich  the  other  day.     This  particular 


176  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

boat  was  got  by  a  mine  whicli  tore  a  hole  in  ber 
aft.  She  was  too  disabled  to  come  to  the  sur- 
face, and  she  began  to  sink  tail  down.  Now  the 
immediate  effect  of  a  hole  in  a  U-boat  is  of 
course  to  bring  the  air  pressure  within  her  to 
the  same  level  as  the  pressure  of  the  water  out- 
side. For  every  ten  yards  of  depth  this  means 
an  addition  of  fourteen  pounds  to  the  square 
inch.  The  ears  and  blood  vessels  are  suddenly 
subjected  to  this  enormous  pressure.  There  is 
at  once  a  violent  pain  in  the  ears  and  a  weight 
on  the  chest.  Cotton  wool  has  to  be  stuffed  into 
ears  and  nostrils  to  save  the  ear  drum.  Then 
the  boat  is  no  longer  on  an  even  keel.  The 
men  stand  and  slip  about  on  the  sides  of  things. 
They  clamber  up  the  floor  out  of  the  way  of  the 
slowly  rising  water.  For  the  water  does  not 
come  rushing  in  to  drown  them  speedily.  It 
cannot  do  that  because  there  is  no  escape  for 
the  air ;  the  water  creeps  in  steadily  and  stealth- 
ily as  the  U-boat  goes  deeper  and  deeper.  It 
is  a  process  of  slow  and  crushing  submergence 
that  has  the  cruel  deliberation  of  some  story  by 
Edgar  Allan  Poe ;  it  may  last  for  hours.  A  time 
comes  when  the  lights  go  out  and  the  rising 
waters  stop  the  apparatus  for  keeping  up  the 
supply  of  oxygen  and  absorbing  the  carbonic 
acid.     Suffocation  begins.     Think  of  what  must 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  177 

happen  in  tlie  minds  of  the  doomed  men  crowded 
together  amidst  the  machinery.  In  the  partic- 
ular case  these  prisoners  described,  several  of 
the  men  drowned  themselves  deliberately  in  the 
rising  waters  inside  the  boat.  And  in  another 
case  where  the  boat  was  recovered  full  of  dead 
men,  they  had  all  put  their  heads  under  the 
water  inside  the  boat.  People  say  the  U-boat 
men  carry  poison  against  such  mischances  as 
this.     They  don't.    It  would  be  too  tempting. 

^^  When  it  becomes  evident  that  the  U-boat 
can  never  recover  the  surface,  there  is  usually 
an  attempt  to  escape  by  the  hatches.  The 
hatches  can  be  opened  when  at  last  the  pressure 
inside  is  equal  to  that  of  the  water  without. 
The  water  of  course  rushes  in  and  sinks  the 
U-boat  to  the  bottom  like  a  stone,  but  the  men 
who  are  nearest  to  the  hatch  have  a  chance  of 
escaping  mth  the  rush  of  air  to  the  surface. 
There  is  of  course  a  violent  struggle  to  get  near- 
est to  the  hatch.  This  is  what  happened  in  the 
case  of  the  particular  U-boat  from  which  these 
prisoners  came.  The  forward  hatch  was 
opened.  Our  patrol  boat  cruising  above  saw 
the  waters  thrown  up  by  the  air-burst  and  then 
the  heads  of  the  men  struggling  on  the  surface. 
Most  of  these  men  were  screaming  with  pain. 


178  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

All  of  them  went  under  before  they  could  be 
picked  up  except  two.  And  these  two  died  in 
a  day  or  so.  They  died  because  coming  sud- 
denly up  to  the  ordinary  atmosphere  out  of  the 
compressed  air  of  the  sinking  submarine  had 
burst  the  tissues  of  their  lungs.  They  were 
choked  with  blood. 

''  Think  of  those  poor  creatures  dying  in  the 
hospital.  They  were  worn  out  by  fits  of  cough- 
ing and  haemorrhage,  but  there  must  have  been 
moments  of  exliausted  quiet  before  the  end, 
when  our  youngster  lay  and  stared  at  the  bleak 
walls  of  the  ward  and  thought;  when  he  asked 
himself,  *  What  have  I  been  doing !  What  have 
I  done  ?  What  has  this  world  done  for  me  ?  It 
has  made  me  a  murderer.  It  has  tortured  me 
and  wasted  me.  .  .  .  And  I  meant  well  by 
it.  .    .    .' 

*  *  Whether  he  thought  at  all  about  the  making 
of  the  submarine,  the  numberless  ingenuities 
and  devices,  the  patience  and  devotion,  that 
had  gone  to  make  that  grim  trap  in  which  he 
had  been  caught  at  last,  I  cannot  guess. 
.  .  .  Probably  he  took  it  as  a  matter  of 
course.   .    .    . 

>  ^^  So  it  was  that  our  German  youngster  who 
dreamt  dreams,  who  had  ambitions,  who  wished 
to  serve  and  do  brave  and  honourable  things, 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  179 

died.  ...  So  ^ve  thousand  men  at  least  have 
died,  English  some  of  them  as  well  as  German, 
in  lost  submarines  beneath  the  waters  of  the 
narrow  seas.   .    .    . 

^^  There  is  a  story  and  a  true  story.  It  is 
more  striking  than  the  fate  of  most  men  and 
women  in  the  world,  but  is  it,  in  its  essence, 
different  I  Is  not  the  whole  life  of  our  time  in 
the  vein  of  this  story?  Is- not  this  story  of 
youth  and  hope  and  possibility  misled,  marched 
step  by  step  into  a  world  misconceived,  thrust 
into  evil,  and  driven  do^vn  to  ugliness  and  death, 
only  a  more  vivid  rendering  of  what  is  now  the 
common  fate  of  great  multitudes  ?  Is  there  any 
one  of  us  who  is  not  in  some  fashion  aboard  a 
submarine,  doing  evil  and  driving  towards  an 
evil  end?  .    .    . 

*^  What  are  the  businesses  in  which  men  en- 
gage ?  How  many  of  them  have  any  likeness  to 
freighted  ships  that  serve  the  good  of  mankind? 
Think  of  the  lying  and  cornering,  the  crowding 
and  outbidding,  the  professional  etiquette  that 
robs  the  common  man,  the  unfair  advantage 
smugly  accepted!  AVhat  man  among  us  can 
say,  *  All  that  I  do  is  service'?  Our  holding 
and  our  effort :  is  it  much  better  than  the  long- 
interludes  below  the  surface,  and  when  we  come 
up  to  struggle  for  our  own  hands,  torpedoing 


180  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

competitors,  wrecking  antagonists,  how  is  it 
with  us?  The  submarine  sailors  stare  in  the 
twilight  at  drowning  men.  Every  day  I  stare 
at  a  world  dro^vning  in  poverty  and  ignorance, 
a  world  awash  in  the  seas  of  hunger,  disease, 
and  misery.  We  have  been  given  leisure,  free- 
dom, and  intelligence;  what  have  we  done  to 
prevent  these  things? 

^ '  I  tell  you  all  the  world  is  a  submarine,  and 
every  one  of  us  is  something  of  a  U-boat  man. 
These  fools  who  squeal  in  the  papers  for  cruel- 
ties to  the  U-boat  men  do  not  realize  their  own 
part  in  the  world.  .  .  .  We  might  live  in  sun- 
shine and  freedom  and  security,  and  we  live 
cramped  and  cold,  in  bitter  danger,  because  we 
are  at  war  with  our  fellow  men.   .    .    . 

**  But  there,  doctor,  you  have  the  answer  to 
the  first  part  of  your  question.  You  asked  what 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  Man  was  against.  It  is 
against  these  mental  confusions,  these  igno- 
rances, that  thrust  life  into  a  frightful  cul-de- 
sac,  that  the  God  in  our  Hearts  urges  us  to  fight. 
.  .  .  He  is  crying  out  in  our  hearts  to  save 
us  from  these  blind  alleys  of  selfishness,  dark- 
ness, cruelty,  and  pain  in  which  our  race  must 
die ;  he  is  crying  for  the  high  road  which  is  sal- 
vation, he  is  commanding  the  organized  unity 
of  mankind.'' 


§5 

The  lassitude  that  had  been  earlier  apparent 
in  the  manner  of  Mr.  Huss  had  vanished.  He 
was  talking  now  with  more  energy;  his  eyes 
were  bright  and  there  was  a  flush  in  his  cheeks. 
His  voice  was  low,  but  his  speech  was  clear  and 
no  longer  broken  by  painful  pauses. 

'^  But  your  question  had  a  double  edge,"  he 
continued;  ^*  you  asked  me  not  only  what  it  is 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  in  us  fights  against,  but 
what  it  is  he  fights  for.  Whither  does  the  high 
road  lead?  I  have  told  you  what  I  think  the 
life  of  man  is,  a  felted  and  corrupting  mass  of 
tragic  experiences ;  let  me  tell  you  now  a  little, 
if  this  pain  at  my  side  will  still  permit  it,  what 
life  upon  this  earth,  under  the  leadership  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  our  Captain,  might  be. 

^  ^  I  will  take  it  that  men  are  still  as  they  are, 
that  all  this  world  is  individually  the  same;  I 
will  suppose  no  miraculous  change  in  human 
nature;  but  I  will  suppose  that  events  in  the 
past  have  run  along  different  channels,  so  that 
there  has  been  much  more  thinking,  much  more 

181 


182  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

exchang-c  of  thought,  far  better  teaching.  I 
want  simply  this  world  better  taught,  so  that 
wherever  the  flame  of  God  can  be  lit  it  has  been 
lit.  Everyone  I  will  suppose  educated.  By 
educated,  to  be  explicit,  I  mean  a  knowledge  and 
understanding  of  history.  Yes,  Mr.  Farr — ^ 
salvation  by  history.  Everyone  about  the  earth 
1  will  suppose  has  been  taught  not  merely  to 
read  and  write  and  calculate,  but  has  been  given 
all  that  can  be  told  simply  and  plainly  of  the 
past  history  of  the  earth,  of  our  place  in  space 
and  time,  and  the  true  history  of  mankind.  I 
will  not  suppose  that  there  is  any  greater  knowl- 
edge of  things  than  men  actually  possess  to-day, 
but  instead  of  its  being  confusedly  stored  in 
many  minds  and  many  books  and  many  lan- 
guages, it  has  all  been  sorted  out  and  set  out 
plainly  so  that  it  can  be  easily  used.  It  has 
been  kept  back  from  no  one,  mistold  to  no  one. 
Moreover  I  will  suppose  that  instead  of  a 
myriad  of  tongues  and  dialects,  all  men  can  read 
the  same  books  and  talk  together  in  the  same 
speech. 

*^  These  you  may  say  are  difficult  supposi- 
tions, but  they  are  not  impossible  suppositions. 
Quite  a  few  resolute  men  could  set  mankind 
definitely  towards  such  a  state  of  affairs  so  that 
they  would  reach  it  in  a  dozen  generations  or 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  183 

so.  But  think  what  a  difference  there  would  be 
from  our  conditions  in  such  a  world.  In  a  world 
so  lit  and  opened  by  education,  most  of  these 
violent  dissensions  that  trouble  mankind  would 
be  impossible.  Instead  of  men  and  communi- 
ties behaving  like  fever  patients  in  delirium, 
striking  at  their  nurses,  oversetting  their  food 
and  medicine  and  inflicting  injuries  on  them- 
selves and  one  another,  they  would  be  alive  to 
the  facts  of  their  common  origin,  their  common 
offspring  —  for  at  last  in  our  descendants  all 
our  Kves  must  meet  again  —  and  their  common 
destiny.  In  that  more  open  and  fresher  air,  the 
fire  that  is  God  will  burn  more  bMightly,  for  most 
of  us  who  fail  to  know  God  fail  through  want 
of  knowledge.  Many  more  men  and  women  will 
be  happily  devoted  to  the  common  work  of  man- 
kind, and  the  evil  that  is  in  all  of  us  will  be  more 
plainly  seen  and  more  easily  restrained.  I 
doubt  if  any  man  is  altogether  evil,  but  in  this 
dark  world  the  good  in  men  is  handicapped  and 
sacrifice  is  mocked.  Bad  example  finishes  what 
weak  and  aimless  teaching  has  begun.  This  is 
a  world  where  folly  and  hate  can  bawl  sanity 
out  of  hearing.  Only  the  determination  of 
schoolmasters  and  teachers  can  hope  to  change 
that.  How  can  you  hope  to  change  it  by  any- 
thing but  teaching?  Cannot  you  realize  what 
teaching  means?  .    .    . 


184  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

**  When  I  ask  you  to  suppose  a  world  in- 
structed and  educated  in  the  place  of  this  old 
traditional  world  of  unguided  passion  and  greed 
and  meanness  and  mean  bestiality,  a  world 
taught  by  men  instead  of  a  world  neglected  by 
hirelings,  I  do  not  ask  you  to  imagine  any 
miraculous  change  in  human  nature.  I  ask  3^ou 
only  to  suppose  that  each  mind  has  the  utmost 
enlightenment  of  which  it  is  capable  instead  of 
its  being  darkened  and  overcast.  Everyone  is 
to  have  the  best  chance  of  being  his  best  self. 
Everyone  is  to  be  living  in  the  light  of  the 
acutest  self-examination  and  the  clearest  mutual 
criticism.  Naturally  we  shall  be  living  under 
infinitely  saner  and  more  helpful  institutions. 
Such  a  state  of  things  will  not  indeed  mitigate 
natural  vanity  or  natural  self-love;  it  will  not 
rob  the  greedy  man  of  his  greed,  the  fool  of  his 
folly,  the  eccentric  of  his  abnormality,  nor  the 
lustful  of  his  lust.  But  it  will  rob  them  of  ex- 
cuses and  hiding  places ;  it  will  light  them  within 
and  cast  a  light  round  about  them;  it  will  turn 
their  evil  to  the  likeness  of  a  disease  of  which 
they  themselves  in  their  clear  moments  will  be 
ready  to  be  cured  and  which  they  will  hesitate 
to  transmit.  That  is  the  world  which  such  of 
us  schoolmasters  and  teachers  among  us  as  have 
the  undying  fire  of  God  already  lit  in  our  hearts, 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  185 

do  now  labour,  generation  by  generation, 
against  defeat  and  sometimes  against  hope,  to 
bring  about;  that  is  the  present  work  God  has 
for  us.  And  as  we  do  bring  it  about  then  the 
prospect  opens  out  before  mankind  to  a  splen- 
dour.  .    .    . 

^*  In  this  present  world  men  live  to  be  them- 
selves; having  their  lives  they  los^  them;  in  the 
world  that  we  are  seeking  to  make  the>  vnll  give 
themselves  to  the  God  of  Mankind,  and  so  ikov 
will  live  indeed.  They  will  as  a  matter  of  course 
change  their  institutions  and  their  methods  so 
that  all  men  may  be  used  to  the  best  effect,  in 
the  common  work  of  mankind.  They  mil  take 
this  little  planet  which  has  been  torn  into  shreds 
of  possession,  and  make  it  again  one  garden. 

•       •       • 

*^  The  most  perplexing  thing  about  men  at 
the  present  time  is  their  lack  of  understanding 
of  the  vast  possibilities  of  power  and  happiness 
that  science  is  offering  them — '* 

^^  Then  why  not  teach  science?  '^  cried  Mr. 
Farr. 

<^  Provided  only  that  they  will  unite  their 
efforts.  They  solve  the  problems  of  material 
science  in  vain  until  they  have  solved  their  social 
and  political  problems.  When  those  are  solved, 
the   mechanical   and   technical   difficulties   are 


186  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

trivial.  It  is  no  occult  secret ;  it  is  a  plain  and 
demonstrable  thing  to-day  that  the  world  could 
give  ample  food  and  ample  leisure  to  every 
human  being,  if  only  by  a  world-wide  teaching 
the  spirit  of  unity  could  be  made  to  prevail  over 
the  imiDulse  to  dissension.  And  not  only  that, 
but  it  would  then  be  possible  to  raise  the  com- 
mon health  and  increase  the  common  fund  of 
happiness  immeasurably.  Look  plainly  at  the 
world  as  it  is.  Most  human  beings  when  they 
are  not  dying  untimely,  are  suffering  more  or 
less  from  avoidable  disorders,  they  are  ill  or 
they  are  convalescent,  or  they  are  suffering 
from  or  crippled  by  some  preventable  taint  in 
the  blood,  or  they  are  stunted  or  weakened  by  a 
needlessly  bad  food  supply,  or  spiritless  and 
feeble  through  bad  housing,  bad  clothing,  dull 
occupations,  or  insecurity  and  anxiety.  Few 
enjoy  for  very  long  stretches  at  a  time  that 
elementary  happiness  which  is  the  natural  ac- 
companiment of  sound  health.  This  almost 
universal  lowness  of  tone,  which  does  not  dis- 
tress us  only  because  most  of  us  are  unable 
to  imagine  anything  better,  means  an  enormous 
waste  of  human  possibility ;  less  work,  less  hope- 
fulness. Isolated  efforts  will  never  raise  men 
out  of  this  swamp  of  malaise.  At  Woldingstan- 
ton  we  have  had  the  best  hygienic  arrangements 


ELIHU   REPROVES  JOB  187 

we  could  find,  we  have  taken  the  utmost  pre- 
cautions, and  yet  there  has  scarcely  been  a  year 
when  our  work  has  not  been  crippled  and  de- 
layed by  some  epidemic,  influenza  one  year, 
measles  another,  and  so  on.  We  take  our  pre- 
cautions ;  but  the  townspeople,  especially  in  the 
poorer  quarters,  don't  and  can't.  I  think  my- 
self the  wastage  of  these  perennial  petty  pesti- 
lences is  far  greater  than  that  caused  by  the  big 
epidemics  that  sometimes  sweep  the  world. 
But  all  such  things,  great  or  petty,  given  a  suf- 
ficient world  unanimity,  could  be  absolutely  ban- 
ished from  human  life.  Given  a  sufficient  una- 
nimity and  intelligent  direction,  men  could  hunt 
down  all  these  infectious  diseases,  one  by  one, 
to  the  regions  in  which  they  are  endemic,  and 
from  which  they  start  out  again  and  again  to 
distress  the  world,  and  could  stamp  them  out 
for  ever.  It  is  not  want  of  knowledge  prevents 
this  now  but  want  of  a  properly  designed  edu- 
cation, which  would  give  people  throughout  the 
world  the  understanding,  the  confidence,  and  the 
will  needed  for  so  collective  an  enterprise. 

*  *  The  sufferings  and  mutual  cruelties  of  ani- 
mals are  no  doubt  a  part  of  the  hard  aimlessness 
of  nature,  but  men  are  in  a  position  to  substi- 
tute aim  for  that  aimlessness,  they  have  already 
all  the  knowledge  and  all  the  resources  needed 


188  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

to  escape  from  these  cul-de-sacs  of  wrong-doing 
and  suffering  and  ugly  futility  into  which  they 
jostle  one  another.  But  they  do  not  do  it  be- 
cause they  have  not  been  sufficiently  educated 
and  are  not  being  sufficiently  educated  to  sane 
understanding  and  effort.  The  bulk  of  their 
collective  strength  is  dissipated  in  miserable 
squabbles  and  suspicions,  in  war  and  the  prep- 
aration for  war,  in  lawsuits  and  bickering,  in 
making  little  sterile  private  hoards  of  wealth 
and  power,  in  chaffering,  in  stupid  persecutions 
and  oppositions  and  vanities.  It  is  not  only 
that  they  live  in  a  state  of  general  infection  and 
ill  health  and  bad  temper,  ill  nourished,  ill 
housed  and  morally  horrible,  when  the  light  is 
ready  to  shine  upon  them  and  health  and  splen- 
dour is  within  their  grasp,  but  that  all  that  they 
could  so  attain  would  be  but  the  prelude  to  still 
greater  attainments. 

**  Apart  from  and  above  the  sweeping  away 
of  the  poverty,  filthiness  and  misery  of  life  that 
would  follow  on  an  intelligent  use  of  such  pow- 
ers and  such  qualities  as  men  possess  now,  there 
would  be  a  tremendous  increase  in  happiness 
due  to  the  contentment  of  belonging  to  one  com- 
mon comprehensible  whole,  of  knowing  that  one 
played  a  part  and  a  worthy  part  in  an  immortal 
and  universal  task.     The   merest  handful   of 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  189 

people  can  look  with  content  upon  the  tenor  of 
their  lives  to-day.  A  few  teachers  are  perhaps 
aware  that  they  serve  God  rightly,  a  few  sci- 
entific investigators,  a  few  doctors  and  bridge- 
builders  and  makers  of  machinery,  a  few  food- 
growers  and  sailors  and  the  like.  They  can 
believe  that  they  do  something  that  is  necessary, 
or  build  something  which  will  endure.  But  most 
men  and  women  to-day  are  like  beasts  caught 
in  a  tunnel;  they  follow  base  occupations,  they 
trade  and  pander  and  dispute ;  there  is  no  peace 
in  their  hearts ;  they  gratify  their  lusts  and  seek 
excitements;  they  know  they  spend  their  lives 
in  vain  and  they  have  no  means  of  escape.  The 
world  is  full  of  querulousness  and  abuse,  deri- 
sion and  spite,  mean  tricks  and  floundering  ef- 
fort, vice  without  a  gleam  of  pleasure  and  vain 
display,  because  blind  Nature  spews  these 
people  into  being  and  there  is  no  light  to  guide 
their  steps.  Yet  there  is  work  to  be  done  by 
everyone,  a  plain  reason  for  that  work,  and 
happiness  in  the  doing  of  it.   .    .    . 

*^  I  do  not  know  if  any  of  us  realize  all  that 
a  systematic  organization  of  the  human  intel- 
ligence upon  the  work  of  research  would  mean 
for  our  race.  People  talk  of  the  wonders  that 
scientific  work  has  given  us  in  the  past  two  hun- 
dred years,  wonders  of  which  for  the  most  part 


190  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

we  are  too  disordered  and  foolish  to  avail  our- 
selves fully.  But  what  scientific  research  has 
produced  so  far  must  be  as  yet  only  the  smallest 
earnest  of  what  scientific  research  can  presently 
give  mankind.  All  the  knowledge  that  makes 
to-day  different  from  the  world  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth has  been  the  work  of  a  few  score  thousand 
men,  mostly  poorish  men,  working  with  limited 
material  and  restricted  time,  in  a  world  that 
discouraged  and  misunderstood  them.  Many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  with  gifts  that 
would  have  been  of  the  profoundest  value  in 
scientific  work,  have  missed  the  education  or 
the  opportunity  to  use  those  gifts.  But  in  a 
world  clarified  by  understanding,  the  net  of  re- 
search would  miss  few  of  its  born  servants, 
there  would  be  the  swiftest,  clearest  communica- 
tion of  results  from  worker  to  worker,  the  read- 
iest honour  and  help  for  every  gift.  Poor 
science,  which  goes  about  now  amidst  our  crimes 
and  confusions  like  an  ill-trimmed  evil-smelling 
oil  lantern  in  a  dark  cavern  in  which  men  fight 
and  steal,  her  flickering  light,  snatched  first  by 
this  man  and  then  by  that,  as  often  as  not  a  help 
to  violence  and  robbery,  would  become  like  the 
sunrise  of  a  bright  summer  morning.  We  do 
not  realize  what  in  a  little  while  mankind  could 
do.    Our  power  over  matter,  our  power  over 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  191 

life,  our  power  over  ourselves,  would  increase 
year  by  year  and  day  by  day. 

**  Here  am  I,  after  great  suffering,  waiting 
here  for  an  uncertain  operation  that  may  kill 
me.  It  need  not  have  been  so.  Here  are  we 
all,  sitting  hot  and  uncomfortable  in  this  ill- 
ventilated,  ill-furnished  room,  looking  out  upon 
a  vile  waste.  It  need  not  have  been  so.  Such 
is  the  quality  of  our  days.  I  sit  here  wrung  by 
pain,  in  the  antechamber  of  death,  because  man- 
kind has  suffered  me  to  suffer.  .  .  .  All  this 
could  have  been  avoided.  .  .  .  Not  for  ever 
will  such  things  endure,  not  for  ever  will  the 
Mocker  of  Mankind  prevail.  .    .    . 

* '  And  such  knowledge  and  power  and  beauty 
as  we  poor  watchers  before  the  dawn  can  gTiess 
at,  are  but  the  beginning  of  all  that  could  arise 
out  of  these  shadows  and  this  torment.  Not 
for  ever  shall  life  be  marooned  upon  this  planet, 
imprisoned  by  the  cold  and  incredible  emptiness 
of  space.  Is  it  not  plain  to  you  all,  from  what 
man  in  spite  of  everything  has  achieved,  that 
he  is  but  at  the  beginning  of  achievement  ?  That 
presently  he  will  take  his  body  and  his  life  and 
mould  them  to  his  will,  that  he  will  take  glad- 
ness and  beauty  for  himself  as  a  girl  will  pick 
a  flower  and  twine  it  in  her  hair.  You  have 
said.  Doctor  Barrack,  that  when  industrial  com- 


192  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

petition  ends  among  men  all  change  in  the  race 
will  be  at  an  end.  But  you  said  that  unthink- 
ingly. For  when  a  collective  will  grows  plain, 
there  will  be  no  blind  thrusting  into  life  and  no 
blind  battle  to  keep  in  life,  like  the  battle  of  a 
crowd  crushed  into  a  cul-de-sac,  any  more.  The 
qualities  that  serve  the  great  ends  of  the  race 
will  be  cherished  and  increased;  the  sorts  of 
men  and  women  that  have  these  qualities  least 
will  be  made  to  understand  the  necessary  re- 
straints of  their  limitation.  You  said  that  when 
men  ceased  to  compete,  they  would  stand  still. 
Rather  is  it  true  that  when  men  cease  their 
internecine  war,  then  and  then  alone  can  the 
race  sweep  forward.  The  race  will  grow  in 
power  and  beauty  swiftly,  in  every  generation 
it  will  grow,  and  not  only  the  human  race.  All 
this  world  will  man  make  a  garden  for  himself, 
ruling  not  only  his  kind  but  all  the  lives  that  live, 
banishing  the  cruel  from  life,  making  the  others 
merciful  and  tame  beneath  his  hand.  The  flies 
and  mosquitoes,  the  thorns  and  poisons,  the 
fungus  in  the  blood,  and  the  murrain  upon  his 
beasts,  he  will  utterly  end.  He  will  rob  the 
atoms  of  their  energy  and  the  depths  of  siDace 
of  their  secrets.  He  will  break  his  prism  in 
space.    He  will  step  from  star  to  star  as  now 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  193 

we  step  from  stone  to  stone  across  a  stream. 
Until  he  stands  in  the  light  of  God's  presence 
and  looks  his  Mocker  and  the  Adversary  in  the 
face.   .    .    .'' 

'^  Oh  I  Ravins!  ''  Mr.  Dad  burst  out,  unable 
to  contain  himself. 

*  *  You  may  think  my  mind  is  fevered  because 
my  body  is  in  pain;  but  never  was  my  mind 
clearer  than  it  is  now.  It  is  as  if  I  stood  already 
half  out  of  this  little  life  that  has  held  me  so 
long.  It  is  not  a  dream  I  tell,  but  a  reality. 
The  world  is  for  man,  the  stars  in  their  courses 
are  for  man  —  if  only  he  will  follow  the  God 
who  calls  to  him  and  take  the  gift  God  offers. 
As  I  sit  here  and  talk  of  these  things  to  you 
here,  they  become  so  plain  to  me  that  I  cannot 
understand  your  silence  and  why  you  do  not 
burn  —  as  I  burn  —  with  the  fire  of  God's  pur- 
pose.  .    .    ." 

He  stopped  short.  He  seemed  to  have  come 
to  the  end  of  his  strength.  His  chin  sank,  and 
his  voice  when  he  spoke  again  was  the  voice  of 
a  weak  and  weary  man. 

^'  I  talk.  ...  I  talk.  .  .  .  And  then  a 
desolating  sense  of  reality  blows  like  a  destroy- 
ing gust  through  my  mind,  and  my  little  lamp 
of  hope  goes  out.  .    .    . 


194  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

'^  It  is  as  if  some  great  adversary  sat  over 
all  my  world,  mocking  me  in  every  phrase  I 
use  and  every  act  I  do.  .    .    . " 

He  sighed  deeply. 

*^  Have  I  answered  your  questions,  doctor?  " 
he  asked. 


§6 

**  You  speak  of  God,''  said  Dr.  Barrack. 
*  *  But  this  that  you  speak  of  as  God,  is  it  really 
what  men  understand  by  God?  It  seems  to  me, 
as  I  said  to  begin  with,  it  is  just  a  personifica- 
tion of  the  good  will  in  us  all.  Why  bring  in 
God?  God  is  a  word  that  has  become  associated 
with  all  sorts  of  black  and  cruel  things.  It  sets 
one  thinking  of  priesthoods,  orthodoxies,  per- 
secutions. Why  do  you  not  call  this  upward 
and  onward  power  Humanity?  Why  do  you 
not  call  it  the  Spirit  of  Men?  Then  it  might 
be  possible  for  an  Agnostic  like  myself  to  feel 
a  sort  of  agreement.   .    .    .'' 

*'  Because  I  have  already  shown  you  it  is  not 
humanity,  it  is  not  the  spirit  of  men.  Human- 
ity, the  spirit  of  men,  made  poison  gas  and  the 
submarine ;  the  spirit  of  man  is  jealous,  aggres- 
sive and  partizan.  Humanity  has  greed  and 
competition  in  grain,  and  the  spirit  of  man  is 
fear  and  hatred,  secrecy  and  conspiracy,  quite 
as  much  as,  much  more  than,  it  is  making  or 
order.    But  this  spirit  in  me,  this  fire  which  I 

195 


196  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

call  God,  was  lit,  I  know  not  how,  but  as  if  it 
came  from  outside.  .    .    . 

''  I  use  the  phrases,^'  said  Mr.  Huss,  ''  that 
come  ready  to  the  mind.  But  I  will  meet  you 
so  far  as  to  say  that  I  know  that  I  am  meta- 
phorical and  inexact.  .  .  .  This  spirit  that 
comes  into  life  —  it  is  more  like  a  person  than 
a  thing  and  so  I  call  it  He.  And  He  is  not  a 
feature,  not  an  aspect  of  things,  but  a  selection 
among  things.  ...  He  seizes  upon  and  brings 
out  and  confirms  all  that  is  generous  in  the  nat- 
ural impulses  of  the  mind.  He  condemns 
cruelty  and  all  evil.   .    .    . 

*^  I  will  not  pretend  to  explain  what  I  cannot 
explain.  It  may  be  that  God  is  as  yet  only 
foreshadowed  in  life.  You  may  reason.  Doctor 
Barrack,  that  this  fire  in  the  heart  that  I  call 
God,  is  as  much  the  outcome  of  your  Process 
as  all  the  other  things  in  life.  I  cannot  argue 
against  that.  What  I  am  telling  you  now  is 
not  what  I  believe  so  much  as  what  I  feel.  To 
me  it  seems  that  the  creative  desire  that  burns 
in  me  is  a  thing  different  in  its  nature  from  the 
blind  Process  of  matter,  is  a  force  running  con- 
trariwise to  the  power  of  confusion.  .  .  .  But 
this  I  do  know,  that  once  it  is  lit  in  a  man  it  is 
like  a  consuming  fire.  Once  it  is  lit  in  a  man, 
then  his  mind  is  alisrht  —  thenceforth.    It  rules 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  197 

his  conscience  with  compelling  power.  It  sum-  ; 
mons  him  to  live  the  residue  of  his  days  working 
and  fighting  for  the  unity  and  release  and  tri- 
umph of  manl^ind.  He  may  be  mean  still,  and 
cowardly  and  vile  still,  but  he  will  know  himself 
for  what  he  is.  .  .  .  Some  ancient  phrases 
live  marvellously.  Within  my  heart  1  know  that 
my  Redeemer  livetJi.   .    .    .'' 

He  stopped  abruptly. 

Dr.  Barrack  was  unprepared  with  a  reply. 
But  he  shook  his  head  obstinately.  These  time- 
worn  phrases  were  hateful  to  his  soul.  They 
smacked  to  him  of  hypocrisy,  of  a  bidding  for 
favour  with  obsolete  and  discredited  influences. 
Through  such  leaks  it  is  superstition  comes 
soaking  back  into  the  laboriously  bailed-out 
minds  of  men.  Yet  Mr.  Huss  was  a  difficult  con- 
troversialist to  grapple.  *^  No,''  said  the  doc- 
tor provisionally.    ^^  No,  . 


yj 


^7 

Fate  came  to  the  relief  of  Dr.  Barrack. 

The  little  conference  at  Sea  View  was  per- 
vaded by  the  sense  of  a  new  personality.  This 
was  a  short  and  angry  and  heated  little  man, 
with  active  dark  brown  eyes  in  a  tan  face,  a 
tooth-brush  moustache  of  iron-grey,  and  a  pro- 
truded lower  jaw.  He  was  dressed  in  a  bright 
bluish-grey  suit  and  bright  brown  boots,  and 
he  carried  a  bright  brown  leather  bag. 

He  appeared  mouthing  outside  the  window, 
beyond  the  range  of  distinct  hearing.  His  ex- 
pression was  blasphemous.  He  made  threat- 
ening movements  with  his  bag. 

*^Good  God!"  cried  Dr.  Barrack.  ''Sir 
Alpheus !  .    .    .     I  had  no  idea  of  the  time !  ' ' 

He  rushed  out  of  the  room  and  there  was  a 
scuffle  in  the  passage. 

*^  I  ought  to  have  been  met,"  said  Sir  Al- 
phens,  entering,  '^  I  ought  to  have  been  met. 
It's  ridiculous  to  pretend  you  didn't  know  the 
time.  A  general  practitioner  always  knows  the 
time.     It  is  his  first  duty.    I  cannot  understand 

198 


ELIHU  REPROVES  JOB  199 

the  incivility  of  this  reception.  I  have  had  to 
make  my  way  to  your  surgery,  Dr.  Barrack, 
without  assistance;  not  a  cab  free  at  the  sta- 
tion ;  I  have  had  to  come  down  this  road  in  the 
heat,  carrying  everything  myself,  reading  all 
the  names  on  the  gates  —  the  most  ridiculous 
and  banal  names.  The  Taj,  Thyme  Bank,  The 
Cedars,  and  Capernaum,  cheek  by  jowl!  It's 
worse  than  Freud.'' 

Dr.  Barrack  expressed  further  regrets  con- 
fusedly and  indistinctly. 

**  We  have  been  talking.  Sir  Alpheus,"  said 
Sir  Eliphaz,  advancing  as  if  to  protect  the  doc- 
tor from  his  specialist,  "'  upon  some  very 
absorbing  topics.  That  must  be  our  excuse  for 
this  neglect.  We  have  been  discussing  educa- 
tion—  and  the  universe.  Fate,  free-will,  pre- 
destination absolute. "  It  is  not  every  building 
contractor  can  quote  Milton. 

The  great  surgeon  regarded  the  patentee  of 
Temanite. 

^*  Fate  —  fiddlesticks!"  said  Sir  Alpheus 
suddenly  and  rudely.  ''  That's  no  excuse  for 
not  meeting  me."  His  bright  little  eyes  darted 
round  the  company  and  recognized  Mr.  Huss. 
**  What!  my  patient  not  in  bed!  Not  even  in 
bed!    Qo  to  hed,^\Y\    Go  to  bed!  ^^ 

He  became  extremely  abusive  to  Dr.  Barrack. 
**  You  treat  an  operation,  Sir,  with  a  levity  —  I" 


CHAPTER  THE  SIXTH 

THE  OPERATIOlSr 

§1 

While  Sir  Alpheus  grumbled  loudly  at  the 
unpreparedness  of  everything,  Mr.  Huss,  with 
the  assistance  of  Dr.  Barrack,  walked  upstairs 
and  disrobed  himself. 

This  long  discussion  had  taken  a  very  power- 
ful grip  upon  his  mind.  Much  remained  uncer- 
tain in  his  thoughts.  He  had  still  a  number  of 
things  he  wanted  to  say,  and  these  proceedings 
preliminary  to  his  vivisection,  seemed  to  him 
to  be  irrelevant  and  tiresome  rites  interrupting 
something  far  more  important. 

The  bed,  the  instruments,  the  preparation  for 
anaesthesia,  were  to  him  no  more  than  new  con- 
tributions to  the  argument.  While  he  lay  on 
the  bed  with  Dr.  Barrack  handling  the  funnel 
hood  that  was  to  go  over  nose  and  mouth  for 
the  administration  of  the  chloroform,  he  tried 
to  point  out  that  the  very  idea  of  operative  sur- 

200 


THE  OPERATION  201 

gery  was  opposed  to  the  scientific  fatalism  of 
that  gentleman.  But  Sir  Alpheus  interrupted 
him.   .    .    . 

**  Breathe  deeply,"  said  Dr.  Barrack.  .   .   . 

'^  Breathe  deeply,"  .    .    . 

The  whole  vast  argumentative  fabric  that  had 
arisen  in  his  mind  swung  with  him  across  an 
abyss  of  dread  and  mental  inanity.  "Whether 
he  thought  or  dreamt  what  follows  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say;  we  can  but  record  the  ideas  that, 
like  a  crystalline  bubble  as  great  as  all  things, 
filled  his  consciousness.  He  felt  a  characteris- 
tic doubt  whether  the  chloroform  would  do  its 
duty,  and  then  came  that  twang  like  the  break- 
ing of  a  violin  string: —  Ploot.  .    .    . 

And  still  he  did  not  seem  to  be  insensible! 
He  was  not  insensible,  and  yet  things  had 
changed.  Dr.  Elihu  was  still  present,  but  some- 
how Sir  Eliphaz  and  Mr.  Dad  and  Mr.  Farr, 
whom  he  had  left  downstairs,  had  come  back 
and  were  sitting  on  the  ground  —  on  the  ashes ; 
they  were  all  seated  gravely  on  a  mound  of 
ashes  and  beneath  a  sky  that  blazed  with  light. 
Sir  Alpheus,  the  nurse,  the  bedroom,  had  van- 
ished.   It  seemed  that  they  had  been  the  dream. 

But  this  was  the  reality,  an  enduring  reality, 
this  sackcloth  and  these  reeking  ash-heaps  out- 
ride the  city  gates.     This  was  the  scene  of  an 


202  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

unending  experiment  and  an  immortal  argu- 
ment. He  was  Job;  the  same  Job  who  had  sat 
here  for  thousands  of  years,  and  this  lean  vul- 
turous old  man  in  the  vast  green  turban  was 
Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  the  smaller  man  who 
peered  out  of  the  cowl  of  a  kind  of  hooded  shawl, 
was  his  friend  Bildad  the  Shuhite;  the  eager, 
coarse  face  of  the  man  in  unclean  linen  was 
Zophar  the  Naamathite;  and  this  fist-faced 
younger  man  who  sat  with  an  air  of  false  humil- 
ity insolently  judging  them  all,  was  Elihu  the 
son  of  Barachel  the  Buzite  of  the  kindred  of 
Eam.   .    -    . 

It  was  queer  that  there  should  have  ever  been 
the  fancy  that  these  men  were  doctors  or  school- 
masters or  munition  makers,  a  queer  veiling  of 
their  immortal  quality  in  the  transitory  gar- 
ments of  a  period.  For  ages  they  had  sat  here 
and  disputed,  and  for  ages  they  had  still  to  sit. 
A  little  way  off  waited  the  asses  and  camels  and 
slaves  of  the  three  emirs,  and  the  two  Ethiopian 
slaves  of  Eliphaz  had  been  coming  towards  them 
bearing  bowls  of  fine  grey  ashes.  (For  Eliphaz 
for  sanitary  reasons  did  not  use  the  common 
ashes  of  the  midden  upon  his  head.)  There,  far 
away,  splashed  green  with  palms  and  pierced  be- 
tween pylons  by  a  glittering  arm  of  the  river, 
were  the  low  brown  walls  of  sun-dried  brick,  the 


THE   OPERATION  203 

flat-roofed  houses,  and  the  twisted  temple  towers 
of  the  ancient  city  of  Uz,  where  first  this  great 
argument  had  begun.  East  and  west  and  north 
and  south  stretched  the  wide  levels  of  the  world, 
dotted  with  small  date  trees,  and  above  them 
was  the  measureless  dome  of  heaven,  set  with 
suns  and  stars  and  flooded  with  a  light. 

This  light  had  shone  out  since  Elihu  had 
spoken,  and  it  was  not  only  a  light  but  a  voice 
clear  and  luminous,  before  which  Job's  very 
soul  bowed  and  was  still.   .    .    . 

'^  Who  is  this  that  darJceneth  counsel  by  words 
without  knowledge?  '^ 

By  a  great  effort  Job  lifted  up  his  eyes  to  the 
zenith. 

It  was  as  if  one  shone  there  who  was  all,  and 
yet  who  comprehended  powers  and  kingdoms, 
and  it  was  as  if  a  screen  or  shadow  was  before 
his  face.  It  was  as  if  a  dark  figure  enhaloed 
in  shapes  and  colours  bent  down  over  the  whole 
world  and  regarded  it  curiously  and  malevo- 
lently, and  it  was  as  if  this  dark  figure  was  no 
more  than  a  translucent  veil  before  an  infinite 
and  lasting  radiance.  Was  it  a  veil  before  the 
light,  or  did  it  not  rather  nest  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  light  and  spread  itself  out  before  the  face 
of  the  light  and  spread  itself  and  recede  and 
again  expand  in  a  perpetual  diastole  and  sys- 


204  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

tole?  It  was  as  if  the  voice  that  spoke  was  the 
voice  of  God,  and  yet  ever  and  again  it  was  as 
if  the  timbre  of  the  voice  was  Satan.  As  the 
voice  spoke  to  Job,  his  friends  listened  and 
watched  him,  and  the  eyes  of  Elihu  shone  like 
garnets  and  the  eyes  of  Eliphaz  like  emeralds, 
but  the  eyes  of  Bildad  were  black  like  the  eyes 
of  a  lizard  upon  a  wall,  and  Zophar  had  no  eyes 
but  looked  at  him  only  with  the  dark  shadows 
beneath  his  knitted  brows.  As  God  spake  they 
all,  and  Job  with  them,  became  smaller  and 
smaller  and  shrank  until  they  were  the  minutest 
of  conceivable  things,  until  the  whole  scene  was 
a  little  toy ;  they  became  unreal  like  discoloura- 
tions  upon  a  floating  falling  disc  of  paper  con- 
fetti, amidst  greatnesses  unfathomable. 

'^  Who  is  this  that  darheneth  counsel  hy 
words  without  knowledge?  '' 

But  in  this  dream  that  was  dreamt  by  Mr. 
Huss  while  he  was  under  the  anaesthetic,  God 
did  not  speak  by  words  but  by  light ;  there  were 
no  sounds  in  his  ears,  but  thoughts  ran  like 
swift  rivulets  of  fire  through  his  brain  and 
gathered  into  pools  and  made  a  throbbing  pat- 
tern of  wavelets,  curve  within  curve,  that  inter- 
laced.  .    .    . 

The  thoughts  that  it  seemed  to  him  that  God 
was  speaking  through  his  mind,  can  be  put  into 


THE   OPERATION  205 

words  only  after  a  certain  fashion  and  with 
great  loss,  for  they  were  thoughts  about  things 
beyond  and  above  this  world,  and  our  words  are 
all  made  out  of  the  names  of  things  and  feelings 
in  this  world.  Things  that  were  contradictory 
had  become  compatible,  and  things  incompre- 
hensible seemed  straightforward,  because  he 
was  in  a  dream.  It  was  as  if  the  anaesthetic  had 
released  his  ideas  from  their  anchorage  to  words 
and  phrases  and  their  gravitation  towards  sen- 
sible realities.  But  it  was  still  the  same  line  of 
thought  he  pursued  through  the  stars  and 
spaces,  that  he  had  pursued  in  the  stuffy  little 
room  at  Sundering-on-Sea. 

It  was  somewhat  after  this  fashion  that  things 
ran  through  the  mind  of  Mr.  Huss.  It  seemed 
to  him  at  first  that  he  was  answering  the  chal- 
lenge of  the  voice  that  filled  the  world,  not  of 
his  own  will  but  mechanically.  He  was  saying : 
'^  Then  give  me  knowledge." 

To  which  the  answer  was  in  the  voice  of  Satan 
and  in  tones  of  mockery.  For  Satan  had  be- 
come very  close  and  definite  to  Job,  as  a  dark 
face,  time-worn  and  yet  animated,  that  sent  out 
circle  after  circle  of  glowing  colour  towards  the 
bounds  of  space  as  a  swimmer  sends  waves  to- 
wards the  bank.  **  But  what  have  you  got  in 
the  way  of  a  vessel  to  hold  your  knowledge  if 
we  gave  it  you?  '' 


206  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

**  In  the  name  of  the  God  in  my  heart,"  said 
Job,  **  I  demand  knowledge  and  power." 

**  Wlio  are  you!  A  pedagogue  who  gives  ill- 
prepared  lessons  about  history  in  f  rowsty  rooms, 
and  dreams  that  he  has  been  training  his  young 
gentlemen  to  play  leap-frog  amidst  the  stars." 

*^  I  am  Man,"  said  Job. 

''  Huss.'' 

But  that  queer  power  of  slipping  one's  iden- 
tity and  losing  oneself  altogether  which  dreams 
will  give,  had  come  upon  Mr.  Huss.  He  an- 
swered with  absolute  conviction:  '*•  I  am  Man. 
Down  there  I  was  Huss,  but  here  I  am  Man.  I 
/  am  every  man  who  has  ever  looked  up  towards 
this  light  of  God.  I  am  every  one  who  has 
thought  or  worked  or  willed  for  the  race.  I  am 
all  the  explorers  and  leaders  and  teachers  that 
man  has  ever  had." 

The  argument  evaporated.  He  carried  his 
point  as  such  points  are  carried  in  dreams. 
The  discussion  slipped  to  another  of  the  issues 
that  had  been  troubling  him. 

*  ^  You  would  plumb  the  deep  of  knowledge ; 
you  would  scale  the  heights  of  space.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  limit  to  either. ' ' 

**  Then  I  will  plumb  and  scale  for  ever.  I 
will  defeat  you." 

*^  But  you  will  never  destroy  me." 

*^  I  will  fight  my  way  through  you  to  God." 


THE  OPERATION  207 

**  And  never  attain  him/^  .    .    . 

It  seemed  as  though  yet  another  voice  was 
speaking.  For  a  while  the  veil  of  Satan  was 
drawn  aside.  The  thoughts  it  uttered  ran  like 
incandescent  molten  metal  through  the  mind 
of  Job,  but  whether  he  was  saying  these  things 
to  God  or  whether  God  was  saying  these  things 
to  him,  did  not  in  any  way  appear. 

''  So  life  goes  on  for  ever.  And  in  no  other 
way  could  it  go  on.  In  no  other  way  could  there 
be  such  a  being  as  life.  For  how  can  you 
struggle  if  there  is  a  certainty  of  victory  *?  Why  ^ 
should  you  struggle  if  the  end  is  assured?  How 
can  you  rise  if  there  is  no  depths  into  which 
you  can  fall?  The  blacknesses  and  the  evils 
about  you  are  the  warrants  of  reality.   .    .    . 

**  Through  the  centuries  the  voice  of  Job  had 
complained  and  will  complain.  Through  the 
centuries  the  fire  of  his  faith  flares  and  flickers 
and  threatens  to  go  out.  But  is  Job  justified  in 
his  complaints? 

**  Is  Job  indeed  justified  in  his  complaints? 
His  mind  has  been  coloured  by  the  colour  of 
misfortune.  He  has  seen  all  the  world  reflect- 
ing the  sufferings  of  his  body.  He  has  dwelt 
upon  illness  and  cruelty  and  death.  But  is 
there  any  evil  or  cruelty  or  suffering  that  is 
beyond  the  possibility  of  human  control?    Were 


208  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

that  so  then  indeed  he  might  complain  that  God 
has  mocked  him.  .-^.  .  Are  sunsets  ugly  and 
oppressive?  Do  mountains  disgust,  do  distant 
hills  repel?  Is  there  any  flaw  in  the  starry  sky? 
If  the  lives  of  beasts  and  men  are  dark  and 
ungracious,  yet  is  not  the  texture  of  their  bodies 
lovely  beyond  comparison?  You  have  sneered 
because  the  beauty  of  cell  and  tissue  may  build 
up  an  idiot.  Why,  oh  Man,  do  they  build  up  an 
idiot?  Have  you  no  will,  have  you  no  under- 
standing, that  you  suffer  such  things  to  be? 
The  darkness  and  ungraciousness,  the  evil  and 
the  cruelty,  are  no  more  than  a  challenge  to 
you.  In  you  lies  the  power  to  rule  all  these 
things.   .    .    . ' ' 

Through  the  tumbled  clouds  of  his  mind 
broke  the  sunlight  of  this  phrase :  *  *  The  power 
to  rule  all  these  things.     The  power  to  rule  — " 

*  *  You  have  dwelt  overmuch  upon  pain.  Pain 
is  a  swift  distress;  it  ends  and  is  forgotten. 
Without  memory  and  fear  pain  is  nothing,  a 
contradiction  to  be  heeded,  a  warning  to  be 
taken.  Without  pain  what  would  life  become? 
Pain  is  the  master  only  of  craven  men.  It  is 
in  man's  power  to  rule  it.  It  is  in  man's  power 
to  rule  all  things.   .    .    .  " 

It  was  as  if  the  dreaming  patient  debated 
these  ideas  with  himself ;  and  again  it  was  as  if 


THE   OPERATION  209 

he  were  the  -aniversal  all  and  Job  and  Satan  and 
God  disputed  together  mthin  him.  The  thoughts 
in  his  mind  raced  faster  and  suddenly  grew 
bright  and  glittering,  as  the  waters  grow  bright 
when  they  come  racing  out  of  the  caves  at  Han 
into  the  light  of  day.  Green-faced,  he  mur- 
mured and  stirred  in  his  great  debate  while  the 
busy  specialist  plied  his  scalpels,  and  Dr.  Bar- 
rack whispered  directions  to  the  intent  nurse. 

**  Another  whiff,''  said  Doctor  Barrack. 

**  A  cloud  rolls  back  from  my  soul.  .    .    .  '* 
"^     **  I  have   been  through   great   darkness.     I 
have  been  through  deep  waters.   .    .    . ' ' 

*^  Has  not  your  life  had  laughter  in  it?  Has 
the  freshness  of  the  summer  morning  never 
poured  joy  through  your  being  I  Do  you  know 
nothing  of  the  embrace  of  the  lover,  cheek  to 
cheek  or  lip  to  lip?  Have  you  never  swum  out 
into  the  sunlit  sea  or  shouted  on  a  mountain 
slope?  Is  there  no  joy  in  a  handclasp?  Your 
son,  your  son,  you  say,  is  dead  mth  honour.  Is 
there  no  joy  in  that  honour?  Clean  and  straight 
was  your  son,  and  beautiful  in  his  life.  Is  that 
nothing  to  thank  God  for?  Have  you  never 
played  with  happy  children?  Has  no  boy  ever 
answered  to  your  teaching  —  giving  back  more 
than  you  gave  him?  Dare  you  deny  the  joy  of 
your  appetites :  the  first  mouthful  of  roast  red 


210  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

beef  on  the  frosty  day  and  the  deep  draught  of 
good  ale?  Do  you  know  nothing  of  the  task 
well  done,  nor  of  sleep  after  a  day  of  toil?  Is 
there  no  joy  for  the  farmer  in  the  red  ploughed 
fields,  and  the  fields  shooting  with  green  blades  ? 
When  the  great  prows  smite  the  waves  and  the 
aeroplane  hums  in  the  sky,  is  man  still  a  hope- 
less creature?  Can  you  watch  the  beat  and 
swing  of  machinery  and  still  despair?  Your 
illness  has  coloured  the  world ;  a  little  season  of 
misfortune  has  hidden  the  light  from  your 
eyes/' 

It  was  as  if  the  dreamer  pushed  his  way 
through  the  outskirts  of  a  great  forest  and  ap- 
proached the  open,  but  it  was  not  through  trees 
that  he  thrust  his  way  but  through  bars  and 
nets  and  interlacing  curves  of  blinding,  many- 
coloured  light  towards  the  clear  promise  be- 
yond. He  had  grown  now  to  an  incredible  vast- 
ness  so  that  it  was  no  longer  earth  upon  which 
he  set  his  feet  but  that  crystalline  pavement 
whose  translucent  depths  contain  the  stars. 
Yet  though  he  approached  the  open  he  never 
reached  the  open;  the  iridescent  net  that  had 
seemed  to  grow  thin,  grew  dense  again ;  he  was 
still  struggling,  and  the  black  doubts  that  had 
lifted  for  a  moment  swept  down  upon  his  soul 
again.    And  he  realized  he  was  in  a  dream,  a 


; 


THE  OPERATION  211 

dream  that  was  drawing  swiftly  now  to  its  close. 

''  Oh  God!  ''  he  cried,  "  answer  me!  For 
Satan  has  mocked  me  sorely.  Answer  me  be- 
fore I  lose  sight  of  you  again.  Am  I  right  to 
fight?  Am  I  right  to  come  out  of  my  little 
earth,  here  above  the  stars?  " 

*^  Eight  if  you  dare." 

'  *  Shall  I  conquer  and  prevail  ?  Give  me  your 
promise!  " 

**  Everlastingly  you  may  conquer  and  find 
fresh  worlds  to  conquer. ' ' 

"  May  — hvii  shall  1%  " 

It  was  as  if  the  torrent  of  molten  thoughts 
stopped  suddenly.  It  was  as  if  everything 
stopped. 

*■ '  Answer  me,  ^ '  he  cried. 

Slowly  the  shining  thoughts  moved  on  again. 

*'  So  long  as  your  courage  endures  you  will 
conquer.  .    .    . 

' '  If  you  have  courage,  although  the  night  be 
dark,  although  the  present  battle  be  bloody  and 
cruel  and  end  in  a  strange  and  evil  fashion, 
nevertheless  victory  shall  be  yours  —  in  a  way 
you  will  understand  —  when  victory  comes. 
Only  have  courage.  On  the  courage  in  your 
heart  all  things  depend.  By  courage  it  is  that 
the  stars  continue  in  their  courses,  day  by  day. 
It  is  the  courage  of  life  alone  that  keeps  sky 


212  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

and  earth  apart.  ...  If  that  courage  fail, 
if  that  sacred  fire  go  out,  then  all  things  fail  and 
all  things  go  out,  all  things  —  good  and  evil, 
space  and  time.'' 

*^  Leaving  nothing?  " 

''Nothing.'' 

"'  Nothing,''  he  echoed,  and  the  word  spread 
like  a  dark  and  darkening  mask  across  the  face 
of  all  things. 

And  then  as  if  to  mark  the  meaning  of  the 
word,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  whole  universe 
began  to  move  inward  upon  itself,  faster  and 
faster,  until  at  last  with  an  incredible  haste  it 
rushed  together.  He  resisted  this  collapse  in 
vain,  and  with  a  sense  of  overwhelmed  effort. 
The  white  light  of  God  and  the  whirling  colours 
of  the  universe,  the  spaces  between  the  stars  — 
it  was  as  if  an  unseen  fist  gripped  them  to- 
gether. They  rushed  to  one  point  as  water  in 
a  clepsydra  rushes  to  its  hole.  The  whole  uni- 
verse became  small,  became  a  little  thing,  dimin- 
ished to  the  size  of  a  coin,  of  a  spot,  of  a  pin- 
point, of  one  intense  black  mathematical  point, 
and  —  vanished.  He  heard  his  own  voice  cry- 
ing in  the  void  like  a  little  thing  blown  before 
the  wind :  *  ^  But  will  my  courage  endure  %  ' ' 
The  question  went  unanswered.  Not  only  the 
things  of  space  but  the  things  of  time  swept 


THE  OPERATION  213 

together  into  nothingness.  The  last  moment  of 
his  dream  rushed  towards  the  first,  crumpled 
all  the  intervening  moments  together  and  made 
them  one.  It  seemed  to  Mr.  Huss  that  he  was 
still  in  the  instant  of  insensibility.  That  sound 
of  the  breaking  string  was  still  in  his  ears :  — 
Ploot.   .    .    . 

It  became  part  of  that  same  sound  which  came 
before  the  vision.   .    .    . 

He  was  aware  of  a  new  pain  mthin  him ;  not 
that  dull  aching  now,  but  a  pain  keen  and  sore. 
He  gave  a  fluttering  gasp. 

**  Quick, '^  said  a  voice.     '^  He  is  coming  to !  " 

''  He'll  not  wake  for  hours,"  said  a  second 
voice. 

**  His  mouth  and  eyes!  '' 

He  lifted  his  eyelids  as  one  lifts  lead.  He 
found  himself  looking  into  the  intelligent  but 
unsympathetic  face  of  Sir  Alpheus  Mengo,  he 
tried  to  comprehend  his  situation  but  he  had 
forgotten  how  he  got  to  it,  he  closed  his  eyes 
and  sank  back  consciously  and  wilfully  towards 
insensibility.  .    .  ^ 


CHAPTER  THE  SEVENTH 

LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM 

§1 

It  was  three  weeks  later. 

Never  had  there  been  so  successful  an  opera- 
tion as  an  operation  in  the  experience  of  either 
Sir  Alpheus  Mengo  or  Dr.  Barrack.  The 
growth  that  had  been  removed  was  a  non-malig- 
nant growth;  the  diagnosis  of  cancer  had  been 
unsound.  Mr.  Huss  was  still  lying  flat  in  his 
bed  in  Mrs.  Croome's  house,  but  he  was  already 
able  to  read  books,  letters  and  newspapers,  and 
take  an  interest  in  affairs. 

The  removal  of  his  morbid  growth  had  made 
a  very  great  change  in  his  mental  atmosphere. 
He  no  longer  had  the  same  sense  of  an  invisible 
hostile  power  brooding  over  all  his  life;  his 
natural  courage  had  returned.  And  the  world 
which  had  seemed  a  conspiracy  of  misfortunes 
was  now  a  hopeful  world  again.  The  last  great 
offensive  of  the  Germans  towards  Paris  had 

214 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    215 

collapsed  disastrously  under  the  counter  attacks 
of  Marshal  Foch;  each  morning's  paper  told  of 
fresh  victories  for  the  Allies,  and  the  dark 
shadow  of  a  German  Caesarism  fell  no  longer 
across  the  future.  The  imaginations  of  men 
were  passing  through  a  phase  of  reasonableness 
and  generosity;  the  idea  of  an  organized  world 
peace  had  seized  upon  a  multitude  of  minds; 
there  was  now  a  prospect  of  a  new  and  better 
age  such  as  would  have  seemed  incredible  in 
the  weeks  when  the  illness  of  Mr.  Huss  began 
to  bear  him  down.  And  it  was  not  simply  a 
general  relief  that  had  come  to  his  forebodings. 
His  financial  position,  for  example,  which  had 
been  wrecked  by  one  accident,  had  been  restored 
by  another.  A  distant  cousin  of  Mr.  Huss,  to 
whom  however  Mr.  Huss  was  the  nearest  rela- 
tive, had  died  of  softening  of  the  brain,  after  a 
career  of  almost  imbecile  speculation.  He  had 
left  his  property  partly  to  Mr.  Huss  and  partly 
to  Woldingstanton  School.  For  some  years  be- 
fore the  war  he  had  indulged  in  the  wildest  buy- 
ing of  depreciated  copper  shares,  and  had  accu- 
mulated piles  of  what  had  seemed  at  the  time 
valueless  paper.  The  war  had  changed  all  that. 
Instead  of  being  almost  insolvent,  the  deceased 
in  spite  of  heavy  losses  on  Canadian  land  deals 
was  found  by  his  executors  to  be  worth  nearly 


216  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

thirty  thousand  pounds.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
rate the  good  in  money.  The  windfall  meant 
a  hundred  needed  comforts  and  freedoms,  and 
a  release  for  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Huss  that  nothing 
else  could  have  given  her.  And  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Huss  reflected  the  moods  of  his  wife  much 
more  than  he  suspected. 

But  still  better  things  seemed  to  be  afoot  in 
the  world  of  Mr.  Huss.  The  rest  of  the  gov- 
ernors of  Woldingstanton,  it  became  apparent, 
were  not  in  agreement  with  Sir  Eliphaz  and  Mr. 
Dad  upon  the  project  of  replacing  Mr.  Huss  by 
Mr.  Farr;  and  a  number  of  the  old  boys  of  the 
school  at  the  front,  getting  wind  of  what  was 
going  on,  had  formed  a  small  committee  for  the 
express  purpose  of  defending  their  old  master. 
At  the  head  of  this  committee,  by  a  happy 
chance,  was  young  Kenneth  Burrows,  the 
nephew  and  heir  of  Sir  Eliphaz.  At  the  school 
he  had  never  been  in  the  front  rank;  he  had 
been  one  of  those  good-all-round  boys  who  end 
as  a  school  prefect,  a  sound  man  in  the  first 
eleven,  and  second  or  third  in  most  of  the  sub- 
jects he  took.  Never  had  he  played  a  star  part 
or  enjoyed  very  much  of  the  head's  confidences. 
It  was  all  the  more  delightful  therefore  to  find 
him  the  most  passionate  and  indefatigable 
champion  of  the  order  of  things  that  Mr.  Huss 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    217 

had  set  up.  He  had  heard  of  the  proposed 
changes  at  his  uncle's  dinner-table  when  on 
leave,  and  he  had  done  something  forthwith  to 
shake  that  gentleman's  resolves.  Lady  Bur- 
rows, who  adored  him,  became  at  once  pro- 
Huss.  She  was  all  the  readier  to  do  this  be- 
cause she  did  not  like  Mr.  Dad 's  rather  emphatic 
table  manners,  nor  Mr.  Farr's  clothes. 

'*  You  don't  know  what  Mr.  Huss  was  to  us. 
Sir,"  the  young  man  repeated  several  times, 
and  returned  to  France  with  that  sentence  grow- 
ing and  flowering  in  his  mind.  He  was  one  of 
those  good  types  for  whom  the  war  was  a  power- 
ful developer.  Death,  hardship,  and  responsi- 
bility—  he  was  still  not  two-and- twenty,  and  a 
major  in  the  artillery  —  had  already  made  an 
understanding  man  out  of  the  schoolboy;  he 
could  imagine  what  dispossession  meant;  his 
new  maturity  made  it  seem  a  natural  thing  to 
write  to  comfort  his  old  head  as  one  man  writes 
to  another.  His  pencilled  sheets,  when  first 
they  came,  made  the  enfeebled  recipient  cry, 
not  with  misery  but  happiness.  They  were  re- 
read like  a  love-letter;  they  were  now  on  the 
coverlet,  and  Mr.  Huss  was  staring  at  the  ceil- 
ing and  already  planning  a  new  Woldingstanton 
rising  from  its  ashes,  greater  than  the  old. 


§2 

It  is  only  in  the  last  few  weeks,  the  young 
man  wrote,  that  we  have  heard  of  all  these- 
schemes  to  break  up  the  tradition  of  Wolding- 
stanton,  and  now  there  is  a  talk  of  your  resign- 
ing the  headmaster  ship  in  favour  of  Mr,  Farr. 
Personally  J  Sir,  I  canH  imagine  how  you  can 
possibly  dream  of  giving  up  your  ivork  —  and 
to  him  of  all  people;  —  I  still  have  a  sort  of 
doubt  about  it;  but  my  uncle  was  very  positive 
that  you  were  disposed  to  resign  (personally,  he 
said,  he  had  implored  you  to  stay),  and  it  is  on 
the  off-chance  of  his  being  right  that  I  am  both- 
ering you  ivith  this  letter.  Briefly  it  is  to  im- 
plore you  to  stand  by  the  school,  which  is  as 
much  as  to  say  to  stand  by  yourself  and  us. 
You've  taught  hundreds  of  us  to  stick  it,  and 
now  you  owe  it  to  us  to  stick  it  yourself.  I 
know  you're  ill,  dread f idly  ill;  I've  heard  about 
Gilbert,  and  I  know,  Sir,  we  all  know,  although 
he  wasn't  in  the  school  and  you  never  betrayed 
a  preference  or  were  led  into  an  unfair  thing 
through  it,  how  much  you  loved  him;  you've 

218 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    219 

been  put  through  it,  Sir,  to  the  last  degree. 
But,  Sir,  there  are  some  of  us  here  who  feel 
almost  as  though  they  were  your  sons;  if  you 
don't  and  canH  give  us  that  sort  of  love,  it 
doesnH  alter  the  fact  that  there  are  men  out 
here  ivho  think  of  you  as  they'd  like  to  think  of 
their  fathers.  Men  like  myself  particularly, 
who  were  left  as  boys  without  a  father. 

I'm  no  great  hand  at  expressing  myself;  I'm 
no  credit  to  Mr.  Cross  and  his  English  class; 
generally  I  don't  believe  in  saying  too  much; 
but  I  would  like  to  tell  you  something  of  what 
you  have  been  to  a  lot  of  us,  and  why  Wolding- 
stanton  going  on  will  seem  to  us  like  a  flag 
still  flying  and  Woldingstanton  breaking  its  tra- 
dition like  a  sort  of  surrender.  And  I  don't 
want  a  bit  to  flatter  you.  Sir,  if  you'll  forgive 
me,  and  set  you  up  in  what  I  am  writing  to  you. 
One  of  the  loveable  things  about  you  to  us  is 
that  you  have  always  been  so  jolly  human  to 
us.  You've  always  been  unequal.  I've  seen 
you  give  lessons  that  were  among  the  best  les- 
sons in  the  world,  and  I've  seen  you  give  some 
jolly  bad  lessons.  And  there  were  some  affairs 
—  that  business  of  the  November  fireworks  for  ^ 
example  —  when  ive  thought  you  were  harsh 
and  tvrong  — 

^*  I  was  wrong, '^  said  Mr.  Huss. 


220  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

That  almost  led  to  a  mutiny.  But  that  is  just 
where  you  score,  and  why  Woldingstanton  canH 
do  without  you.  When  that  firework  row  was 
on  we  called  a  meeting  of  the  school  and  house 
prefects  and  had  up  some  of  the  louts  to  it  — 
you  never  heard  of  that  meeting  —  and  we  said, 
we  all  agreed  you  were  wrong  and  we  all  agreed 
that  right  or  wrong  we  stood  by  you,  and 
wouldnH  let  the  row  go  further.  Perhaps  you 
remember  how  that  affair  shut  up  all  at  once. 
But  that  is  where  you've  got  us.  You  do 
wrong,  you  let  us  see  through  you;  there  never 
was  a  schoolmaster  or  a  father  gave  himself 
away  so  freely  as  you  do,  you  never  put  up  a 
sham  front  on  us  and  consequently  every  one  of 
us  knows  that  what  he  knows  about  you  is  the 
real  thing  in  you;  the  very  kids  in  the  lower  fifth 
can  get  a  glimpse  of  it  and  grasp  that  you  are 
driving  at  something  with  all  your  heart  and 
soul,  and  that  the  school  goes  somewhere  and 
has  life  in  it.  We  Woldingstanton  boys  have 
that  in  common  when  toe  meet;  we  understand 
one  another;  we  have  something  that  a  lot  of  the 
other  chaps  one  meets  out  here,  even  from  the 
crack  schools,  donH  seem  to  have.  It  isnH  a 
'flourish  with  us,  Sir,  it  is  a  simple  statement  of 
fact  that  the  life  we  joined  up  to  at  Wolding- 
stanton is  more  important  to  us  than  the  life 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    221 

in  our  bodies.  Just  as  it  is  more  important  to 
you.  It  isfi't  only  the  way  you  taught  it,  though 
you  taught  it  splendidly ,  it  is  the  way  you  felt  it 
that  got  hold  of  us.  You  made  us  think  and  feel 
that  the  past  of  the  world  was  our  oivn  history; 
you  made  us  feel  that  we  were  in  one  living  story 
ivith  the  reindeer  men  and  the  Egyptian  priests, 
with  the  soldiers  of  CcBsar  and  the  alchemists  of 
Spain;  nothing  was  dead  and  nothing  alien;  you 
made  discovery  and  civilization  our  adventure 
and  the  whole  future  our  inheritance.  Most  of 
the  men  I  meet  here  feel  lost  in  this  war;  they 
are  like  rabbits  ivashed  out  of  their  burrows  by 
a  flood,  but  we  of  W oldingstanton  have  taken  it 
in  the  day's  work,  and  when  the  peace  comes 
and  the  new  world  begins,  it  will  still  be  in  the 
story  for  us,  the  day's  ivork  will  still  join  on. 
That's  the  essence  of  W oldingstanton,  that  i{\ 
puts  you  on  the  high  road  that  goes  on.  Thei 
other  chaps  I  talk  to  here  from  other  schools 
seem  to  be  on  no  road  at  all.  They  are  tough 
and  plucky  by  nature  and  association;  they  are 
fighters  and  sturdy  men;  but  what  holds  them 
in  it  is  either  just  habit  and  the  example  of 
people  about  them  or  something  unsound  that 
can't  hold  out  to  the  end;  a  vague  loyalty  to  the 
Empire  or  a  desire  to  punish  the  Hun  or  restore 
the  peace  of  Europe,  some  short  range  view  of 


( 


222  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

that  sort,  motives  that  will  leave  them  stranded 
at  the  end  of  the  war,  anyhow,  ivith  nothing  to 
go  on  to.  To  talk  of  after  the  war  to  them  is  to 
realize  what  blind  alleys  their  teachers  have 
'  led  them  into.  They  can  understand  fighting 
against  things  hut  not  for  things.  Beyond  an 
impossible  ambition  to  go  bach  somewhere  and 
settle  doivn  as  they  used  to  be,  there^s  not  the 
ghost  of  an  idea  to  them  at  all.  The  whole  value 
of  Woldingstanton  is  that  it  steers  a  man 
through  and  among  the  blind  alleys  and  sets  him 
on  a  way  out  that  he  can  follow  for  all  the  rest  of 
his  days;  it  makes  him  a  player  in  a  limitless 
team  and  one  with  the  Creator.  We  are  all  com- 
ing bach  to  tahe  up  our  jobs  in  that  spirit,  jobs 
that  will  all  join  up  at  last  in  mahing  a  real 
world  state,  a  world  civilization  and  a  new  order 
of  things,  and  unless  we  can  thinh  of  you,  sir, 
away  at  Woldingstanton,  worhing  away  to  mahe 
more  of  us,  ready  to  pich  up  the  sons  we  shall 
send  you  presently  — 

Mr.  Huss  stopped  reading. 


§3 

He  lay  thinking  idly. 

^'  I  was  talking  about  blind  alleys  the  other 
day.  Queer  that  he  should  have  hit  on  the  same 
phrase.   .    .    . 

^^  Some  old  sermon  of  mine  perhaps.  .  .  . 
No  doubt  I  Ve  had  the  thought  before.   .    .    . 

**  I  suppose  that  one  could  define  education 
as  the  lifting  of  minds  out  of  blind  alleys.   .  V    . 

^^  A  permissible  definition  anyhow.   .    .    . 

^^  I  msh  I  could  remember  that  talk  better. 
I  said  a  lot  of  things  about  submarines.  I  said 
something  about  the  whole  world  really  being 
like  the  crew  of  a  submarine.   .    .    . 

***  It's  true  —  universally.  Everyone  is  in  a 
blind  alley  until  we  pierce  a  road.   .    .    . 

^'  That  was  a  queer  talk  we  had.  ...  I 
remember  I  wouldn  't  go  to  bed  —  a  kind  of  fever 
in  the  mind.   ... 

^^  Then  there  was  a  dream. 

'^  I  wish  I  could  remember  more  of  that 
dream.     It  was  as  if  I  could  see  round  some 

223 


224  THE   UNDYING   FIRE 

metaphj^sical  corner.  ...  I  seemed  to  be  in 
a  great  place  —  talking  to  God.   .    .    . 

**  But  how  could  one  have  talked  to  God? 
•    •    • 

*'  No.     It  is  gone.  .    .    . '' 

His  thought  reverted  to  the  letter  of  young 
Burrows. 

He  began  to  scheme  out  the  reinstatement  of 
Woldingstanton.  He  had  an  idea  of  rebuilding 
School  House  with  a  map  corridor  to  join  it  to 
the  picture  gallery  and  the  concert  hall,  which 
were  both  happily  still  standing.  He  wanted  the 
maps  on  one  side  to  show  the  growth  and  suc- 
cession of  empires  in  the  western  world,  and 
on  the  other  to  present  the  range  of  geograph- 
ical knowledge  and  thought  at  different  periods 
in  man's  history. 

As  with  many  great  headmasters,  his  idle  day- 
dreams were  often  architectural.  He  took  out 
another  of  his  dream  toys  now  and  played  with 
it.  This  dream  was  that  he  could  organize  a 
series  of  ethnological  exhibits  showing  various 
groups  of  primitive  peoples  in  a  triple  order; 
first  little  models  of  them  in  their  savage  state, 
then  displays  of  their  arts  and  manufactures  to 
show  their  distinctive  gifts  and  aptitudes,  and 
then  suggestions  of  the  part  such  a  people  might 
play  as  artists  or  guides,  or  beast  tamers  or  the 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    225 

like,  in  -a  wholly  civilized  world.  Such  a  collec- 
tion would  be  far  beyond  the  vastest  possibil- 
ities to  which  Woldingstanton  would  ever  attain 
—  but  he  loved  the  dream. 

The  groups  would  stand  in  well-lit  bays,  side 
chapels,  so  to  speak,  in  his  museum  building. 
There  would  be  a  crescent  of  seats  and  a  black- 
board, for  it  was  one  of  his  fantasies  to  have  a 
school  so  great  that  the  classes  would  move 
about  it,  like  little  parties  of  pilgrims  in  a 
cathedral.   .    .    . 

From  that  he  drifted  to  a  scheme  for  grouping 
great  schools  for  such  common  purposes  as  the 
educational  development  of  the  cinematograph, 
a  central  reference  library,  and  the  like.   .    .    . 

For  one  great  school  leads  to  another. 
Schools  are  living  things,  and  like  all  living 
things  they  must  grow  and  reproduce  their  kind 
and  go  on  from  conquest  to  conquest  —  or  fall 
under  the  sway  of  the  Farrs  and  Dads  and  stag- 
nate, become  diseased  and  malignant,  and 
perish.  But  Woldingstanton  was  not  to  perish. 
It  was  to  spread.  It  was  to  call  to  its  kind 
across  the  Atlantic  and  throughout  the  world. 
...  It  was  to  give  and  receive  ideas,  inter- 
breed, and  develop.   .    .    . 

Across  the  blue  October  sky  the  white  clouds 
drifted,  and  the  air  was  full  of  the  hum  of  a 


226  THE  UNDYING   FIRE 

passing  aeroplane.  The  chained  dog  that  had 
once  tortured  the  sick  nerves  of  Mr.  Huss  now 
barked  unheeded. 

**  I  would  like  to  give  one  of  the  chapels  of 
the  races  to  the  memory  of  Gilbert, ' '  whispered 
Mr.  Huss.  .    .    . 


M 

The  door  at  the  foot  of  his  bed  opened,  and 
Mrs.  Huss  appeared. 

She  had  an  effect  of  appearing  suddenly,  and 
yet  she  moved  slowly  into  the  room,  clutching  a 
crumpled  bit  of  paper  in  her  hand.  Her  face 
had  undergone  some  extraordinary  change;  it 
was  dead  white,  and  her  eyes  were  wide  open 
and  very  bright.  She  stood  stiffly.  She  might 
have  been  about  to  fall.  She  did  not  attempt  to 
close  the  door  behind  her. 

Mrs.  Croome  became  audible  rattling  her  pans 
do^vnstairs. 

When  Mrs.  Huss  spoke,  it  was  in  an  almost 
noiseless  whisper.     '^  J  oh!  '^ 

He  had  a  strange  idea  that  Mrs.  Croome  must 
have  given  them  notice  to  quit  instantly  or  per- 
petrated some  such  brutality,  a  suspicion  which 
his  wife's  gesture  seemed  to  confirm.  She  was 
shaking  the  crumpled  scrap  of  paper  in  an 
absurd  manner.  He  frowned  in  a  gust  of  im- 
patience. 

227 


228  THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

^  ^  I  didn  't  open  it, ' '  she  said  at  last,  ^  *  not  till 
I  had  eaten  some  breakfast.  I  didn't  dare.  I 
saw  it  was  from  the  bank  and  I  thought  it  might 
be  about  the  overdraft.   .    .    .     All  the  while. 

She  was  weeping.  '^  All  the  while  I  was 
eating  my  egg.  .    .    . ' ' 

''  Oh  what  is  iW 

She  grimaced. 

**  From  him,'' 

He  stared. 

*  *  A  cheque.  Job  —  come  through  —  from 
him.     From  our  boy.'' 

His  mouth  fell  open,  he  drew  a  deep  breath. 
His  tears  came.  He  raised  himself,  and  was 
reminded  of  his  bandaged  state  and  dropped 
back  again.  He  held  out  his  lean  hand  to 
her. 

''  He's  a  prisoner?  "  he  gasped.    ^^ Alive?  '' 

She  nodded.  She  seemed  about  to  fling  her- 
self violently  upon  his  poor  crumpled  body. 
Her  arms  waved  about  seeking  for  something 
to  embrace. 

Then  she  flopped  down  in  the  narrow  space 
between  bed  and  paper-adorned  fireplace,  and 
gathered  the  counterpane  together  into  a  lump 
with  her  clutching  hands.  '  *  Oh  my  baby  boy ! ' ' 
she  wept.     '  *  My  haby  boy.  .    .    . 


LETTERS  AND  A  TELEGRAM    229 

**  And  I  was  so  wicked  about  the  mourning. 
...     I  was  so  wicked.   .    .    .  '^ 

Mr.  Huss  lay  stiff,  as  the  doctor  had  ordered 
him  to  do ;  but  the  hand  he  stretched  down  could 
just  touch  and  caress  her  hair. 


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